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Teacher Training Series 

" EDITED BY 

W. W. CHARTERS 

Dean of the Facvity of Education. University of Missouri 



THE SCIENCE OF 
HUMAN NATURE 

A PSYCHOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS 

BY 

WILLIAM HENRY PYLE 

PROFE880K OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI 






SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



L~B/cs/ 
Tssr 



OOPTBIQHT, 1917, 

By silver, BUEDETT & COMPANY. 



m -8 1917 
)C1.A467353 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

This book is written for young students in high 
schools and normal schools. No knowledge can be 
of more use to a young person than a knowledge of 
himself; no study can be more valuable to him than 
a study of himself. A study of the laws of human 
behavior, — that is the purpose of this book. 

What is human nature like? Why do we act as 
we do ? How can we make ourselves different ? How 
can we make others different? How can we make 
ourselves more efficient? How can we make our 
lives more worth while? This book is a manual in- 
tended to help young people to obtain such knowledge 
of human nature as will enable them to answer these 
questions. 

I have not attempted to write a complete text on 
psychology. There are already many such books, 
and good ones too. I have selected for treatment 
only such topics as young students can study with 
interest and profit. I have tried to keep in mind all 
the time the practical worth of the matters discussed, 
and the ability and experience of the intended readers. 

TO THE TEACHER 

This book can be only a guide to you. You are to 
help your students study human nature. You must, 
to some extent, be a psychologist yourself before you 

ill 



iv Author's Preface 

can teach psychology. You must yourself be a close 
and scientific student of human nature. Develop 
in the students the spirit of inquiry and investigation. 
Teach them to look to their own minds and their 
neighbor's actions for verification of the statements 
of the text. Let the students solve by observation 
and experiment the questions and problems raised in 
the text and the exercises. The exercises should prove 
to be the most valuable part of the book. The first 
two chapters are the most difficult but ought to be read 
before the rest of the book is studied. If you think 
best, merely read these two chapters with the pupils, 
and after the book is finished come back to them for 
careful study. 

In the references, I have given parallel readings, for 
the most part to Titchener, Pillsbury, and Munster- 
berg. I have purposely limited the references, partly 
because a library will not be available to many who 
may use the book, and partly because the young 
student is likely to be confused by much reading from 
different sources before he has worked out some sort 
of system and a point of view of his own. Only the 
most capable members of a high school class will be 
able to profit much from the references given. 

TO THE STUDENT 

You are beginning the study of human nature. You 
can not study human nature from a book, you must 
study yourself and your neighbors. This book may 
help you to know what to look for and to understand 
what you find, but it can do little more than this. 
It is true, this text gives you many facts learned by 
psychologists, but you must verify the statements, 



Author's Preface 



or at least see their significance to you, or they will be 
of no worth to you. However, the facts considered 
here, properly understood and assimilated, ought to 
prove of great value to you. But perhaps of greater 
value will be the psychological frame of mind or atti- 
tude which you should acquire. The psychological 
attitude is that of seeking to find and understand the 
causes of human action, and the causes, consequences, 
and significance of the processes of the human mind. 
If your first course in psychology teaches you to look 
for these things, gives you some skill in finding them 
and in using the knowledge after you have it, your 
study should be quite worth while. 

W. H. PYLE. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

There are at least two possible approaches to the 
study of psychology by teacher-training students in 
high schools and by beginning students in normal 
schools. 

One of these is through methods of teaching and 
subject matter. The other aims to give the simple, 
concrete facts of psychology as the science of the mind. 
The former presupposes a close relationship between 
psychology and methods of teaching and assumes that 
psychology is studied chiefly as an aid to teaching. 
The latter is less complicated. The plan contemplates 
the teaching of the simple fundamentals at first and 
applying them incidentally as the occasion demands. 
This latter point of view is in the main the point of 
view taken in the text. 

The author has taught the material of the text to 
high school students to the end that he might present 
the fundamental facts of psychology in simple form. 

w. w. c. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Introduction 1 

Chapter II. Development of the Race and op the 

Individual 18 

Chapter III. Mind and Body 34 

Chapter IV. Inherited Tendencies .... 50 

Chapter V. Feeling and Attention .... 73 

Chapter VI. Habit 87 

Chapter VII. Memory 124 

Chapter VIII. Thinking 152 

Chapter IX. Individual Differences .... 176 

Chapter X. Applied Psychology . . . .210 

Glossary 223 

Index 227 



vii 



THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN 
NATURE 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

Science. Before attempting to define psychology, 
it will be helpful to make some inquiry into the nature 
of science in general. Science is knowledge; it is 
what we know. But mere knowledge is not science. 
For a bit of knowledge to become a part of science, its 
relation to other bits of knowledge must be found. In 
botany, for example, bits of knowledge about plants 
do not make a science of botany. To have a science of 
botany, we must not only know about leaves, roots, 
flowers, seeds, etc., but we must know the relations of 
these parts and of all the parts of a plant to one an- 
other. In other words, in science, we must not only 
know, we must not only have knowledge, but we must 
know the significance of the knowledge, must know its 
meaning. This is only another way of saying that we 
must have knowledge and know its relation to other 
knowledge. 

A scientist is one who has learned to organize his 
knowledge. The main difference between a scientist 
and one who is not a scientist is that the scientist sees 
the significance of facts, while the non-scientific man 

1 



2 The Science of Human Nature 

sees facts as more or less unrelated things. As one 
comes to hunt for causes and inquire into the signifi- 
cance of things, one becomes a scientist. A thing or 
an event always points beyond itself to something 
else. This something else is what goes before it or 
comes after it, — is its cause or its effect. This causal 
relationship that exists between events enables a sci- 
entist to prophesy. By carefully determining what 
always precedes a certain event, a certain type of 
happening, a scientist is able to predict the event. 
All that is necessary to be able to predict an event 
is to have a clear knowledge of its true causes. 
Whenever, beyond any doubt, these causes are found 
to be present, the scientist knows the event will fol- 
low. Of course, all that he really knows is that 
such results have always followed similar causes in the 
past. But he has come to have faith in the uniformity 
and regularity of nature. The chemist does not find 
sulphur, or oxygen, or any other element acting one 
way one day under a certain set of conditions, and 
acting another way the next day under exactly the 
same conditions. Nor does the physicist find the laws 
of mechanics holding good one day and not the next. 

The scientist, therefore, in his thinking brings order 
out of chaos in the world. If we do not know the 
causes and relations of things and events, the world 
seems a very mixed-up, chaotic place, where anything 
and everything is happening. But as we come to 
know causes and relations, the world turns out to be a 
very orderly and systematic place. It is a lawful 
world; it is not a world of chance. Everything is 
related to everything else. 

Now, the non-scientific mind sees things as more or 
less unrelated. The far-reaching causal relations are 



Introduction 



only imperfectly seen by it, while the scientific mind 
not only sees things, but inquires into their causes and 
effects or consequences. The non-scientific man, walk- 
ing over the top of a mountain and noticing a stone 
there, is likely to see in it only a stone and think noth- 
ing of how it came to be there ; but the scientific man 
sees quite an interesting bit of history in the stone. 
He reads in the stone that millions of years ago the 
place where the rock now lies was under the sea. 
Many marine animals left their remains in the mud 
underneath the sea. The mud was afterward con- 
verted into rock. Later, the shrinking and warping 
earth-crust lifted the rock far above the level of the 
sea, and it may now be found at the top of the moun- 
tain. The one bit of rock tells its story to one who 
inquires into its causes. The scientific man, then, 
sees more significance, more meaning, in things and 
events than does the non-scientific man. 

Each science has its own particular field. Zoology 
undertakes to answer every reasonable question about 
animals ; botany, about plants ; physics, about motion 
and forces; chemistry, about the composition of 
matter; astronomy, about the heavenly bodies, etc. 
The world has many aspects. Each science under- 
takes to describe and explain some particular aspect. 
To understand all the aspects of the world, we must 
study all the sciences. 

A Scientific Law. By law a scientist has reference 
to uniformities which he notices in things and events. 
He does not mean that necessities are imposed upon 
things as civil law is imposed upon man. He means 
only that in certain well-defined situations certain 
events always take place, according to all previous 
observations. The Law of Falling Bodies may be 



4 The Science of Human Nature 

cited as an example. By this law, the physicist means 
that in observing falling bodies in the past, he has 
noticed that they fall about sixteen feet in the first 
second and acquire in this time a velocity of thirty- 
two feet. He has noted that, taking into account the 
specific gravity of the object and the resistance of the 
air, this way of falling holds true of all objects at about 
the level of the sea. 

The more we carefully study the events of the world, 
the more strongly we come to feel that definite causes, 
under the same circumstances, always produce pre- 
cisely the same result. The scientist has faith that 
events will continue to happen during all the future 
in the same order of cause and effect in which they have 
been happening during all the past. 

The astronomer, knowing the relations of the mem- 
bers of the solar system — the sun and planets — can 
successfully predict the occurrence of lunar and solar 
eclipses. In other fields, too, the scientist can predict 
with as much certainty as does the astronomer, pro- 
vided his knowledge of the factors concerned is as 
complete as is the knowledge which the astronomer 
has of the solar system. Even in the case of human 
beings, uncertain as their actions seem to be, we can 
predict their actions when our knowledge of the fac- 
tors is sufficiently complete. In a great many in- 
stances we do make such predictions. For example, if 
we call a person by name, we expect him to turn, or 
make some other movement in response. Our usual 
inability to make such predictions in the case of human 
beings is not because human beings are not subject to 
the law of cause and effect, it is not that their acts are 
due to chance, but that the factors involved are usually 
many, and it is difficult for us to find out all of them. 



Introduction 



The Science of Psychology. Now, let us ask, what 
is the science of psychology? What kind of problems 
does it try to solve? What aspect of the world has 
it taken for its field of investigation? 

We have said that each science undertakes to describe 
some particular aspect of the world. Human psychol- 
ogy is the science of human nature. But human nature 
has many aspects. To some extent, our bodies are the 
subject matter for physiology, anatomy, zoology, phys- 
ics, and chemistry. Our bodies may be studied in 
the same way that a rock or a table might be studied. 
But a human being presents certain problems that a 
rock or table does not present. If we consider the 
differences between a human being and a table, we 
shall see at once the special field of psychology. If we 
stick a pin into a leg of the table, we get no response. 
If we stick a pin into a leg of a man, we get a charac- 
teristic response. The man moves, he cries out. 
This shows two very great differences between a man 
and a table. The man is sensitive and has the power 
of action, the power of moving himself. The table is 
not sensitive, nor can it move itself. If the pin is 
thrust into one's own leg, one has pain. Human 
beings, then, are sensitive, conscious, acting beings. 
And the study of sensitivity, action, and consciousness 
is the field of psychology. These three characteristics 
are not peculiar to man. Many, perhaps all, animals 
possess them. There is, therefore, an animal psy- 
chology as well as human psychology. 

A study of the human body shows us that the body- 
surface and many parts within the body are filled 
with sensitive nerve-ends. These sensitive nerve- 
ends are the sense organs, and on them the substances 
and forces of the world are constantly acting. In the 



6 The Science of Human Nature 

sense organs, the nerve-ends are so modified or changed 
as to be affected by some particular kind of force or 
substance. Vibrations of ether affect the eye. Vibra- 
tions of air affect the ear. Liquids and solutions affect 
the sense of taste. Certain substances affect the sense 
of smell. Certain organs in the skin are affected by 
low temperatures; others, by high temperatures; 
others, by mechanical pressure. Similarly, each sense 
organ in the body is affected by a definite kind of force 
or substance. 

This affecting of a sense organ is known technically 
as stimulation, and that which affects the organ is 
known as the stimulus. 

Two important consequences ordinarily follow the 
stimulation of a sense organ. One of these is move- 
ment. The purpose of stimulation is to bring about 
movement. To be alive is to respond to stimulation. 
When one ceases to respond to stimulation, he is dead. 
If we are to continue alive, we must constantly adjust 
ourselves to the forces of the world in which we live. 
Generally speaking, we may say that every nerve has 
one end in a sense organ and the other in a muscle. 
This arrangement of the nerves and muscles shows that 
man is essentially a sensitive-action machine. The 
problems connected with sensitivity and action and 
the relation of each to the other constitute a large 
part of the field of psychology. 

We said just now, that a nerve begins in a sense organ 
and ends in a muscle. This statement represents the 
general scheme well enough, but leaves out an im- 
portant detail. The nerve does not extend directly to 
a muscle, but ordinarily goes by way of the brain. 
The brain is merely a great group of nerve cells and 
fibers which have developed as a central organ where a 



Introduction 



stimulation may pass from almost any sense organ to 
almost any muscle. 

But another importance attaches to the brain. 
When a sense organ is stimulated and this stimulation 
passes on to the brain and agitates a cell or group 
of cells there, we are conscious. Consciousness shifts 
and changes with every shift and change of the stim- 
ulation. 

The brain has still another important characteristic. 
After it has been stimulated through sense organ and 
nerve, a similar brain activity can be revived later, 
and this revival is the basis of memory. When the 
brain is agitated through the medium of a sense organ, 
we have sensation; when this agitation is revived later, 
we have a memory idea. A study of consciousness, or 
mind, the conditions under which it arises, and all the 
other problems involved, give us the other part of the 
field of psychology. 

We are not merely acting beings; we are conscious 
acting beings. Psychology must study human nature 
from both points of view. We must study man not 
only from the outside ; that is, objectively, in the same 
way that we study a stone or a tree or a frog, but we 
must study him from the inside or subjectively. It is 
of importance to know not only how a man acts, but 
also how he thinks and feels. 

It must be clear now, that human action, human 
behavior, is the main field of psychology. For, even 
though our main interests in people were in their 
minds, we could learn of the minds only through the 
actions. But our interests in other human beings 
are not in their minds but in what they do. It is true 
that our interest in ourselves is in our minds, and we can 
know these minds directly ; but we cannot know directly 



8 The Science of Human Nature 

the mind of another person, we can only guess what it 
is from the person's actions. 

The Problems of Psychology. Let us now see, in 
some detail, what the various problems of psychology 
are. If we are to understand human nature, we must 
know something of man's past; we must therefore 
treat of the origin and development of the human race. 
The relation of one generation to that preceding and 
to the one following makes necessary a study of hered- 
ity. We must find out how our thoughts, feelings, 
sensations, and ideas are dependent upon a physical 
body and its organs. A study of human actions shows 
that some actions are unlearned while others are 
learned or acquired. The unlearned acts are known as 
instincts and the acquired acts are known as habits. 
Our psychology must, therefore, treat of instincts and 
habits. 

How man gets experience, and retains and organizes 
this experience must be our problem in the chapters on 
sensations, ideas, memory, and thinking. Individual 
differences in human capacity make necessary a treat- 
ment of the different types and grades of intelligence, 
and the compilation of tests for determining these 
differences. We must also treat of the application of 
psychology to those fields where a knowledge of 
human nature is necessary. 

Applied Psychology. At the beginning of a sub- 
ject it is legitimate to inquire concerning the possibility 
of applying the principles studied to practical uses, 
and it is very proper to make this inquiry concerning 
psychology. Psychology, being the science of human 
nature, ought to be of use in all fields where one needs 
to know the causes of human action. And psychology 
is applicable in these fields to the extent that the psy- 



Introduction 9 



chologist is able to work out the laws and principles of 
human action. 

In education, for example, we wish to influence 
children, and we must go to psychology to learn about 
the nature of children and to find out how we can in- 
fluence them. Psychology is therefore the basis of the 
science of education. 

Since different kinds of work demand, in some cases, 
different kinds of ability, the psychology of individual 
differences can be of service in selecting people for 
special kinds of work. That is to say, we must have 
sometime, if we do not now, a psychology of profes- 
sions and vocations. Psychological investigations of 
the reliability of human evidence make the science of 
service in the court room. The study of the laws of 
attention and interest give us the psychology of adver- 
tising. The study of suggestion and abnormal states 
make psychology of use in medicine. It may be said, 
therefore, that psychology, once abstract and unrelated 
to any practical interests, will become the most useful 
of all sciences, as it works out its problems and finds 
the laws of human behavior. 

At present, the greatest service of psychology is to 
education. So true is this that a department has 
grown up called " educational psychology," which 
constitutes at the present time the most important 
subdivision of psychology. While in this book we treat 
briefly of the various applications of psychology, we 
shall have in mind chiefly its application to education. 

The Science of Education. Owing to the impor- 
tance which psychology has in the science of education, 
it will be well for us to make some inquiry into the 
nature of education. If the growth, development, and 
learning of children are all controlled and determined 



10 The Science of Human Nature 

by definite causal factors, then a systematic statement 
of all these factors would constitute the science of 
education. In order to see clearly whether there is 
such a science, or whether there can be, let us inquire 
more definitely as to the kind of problems a science of 
education would be expected to solve. 

There are four main questions which the science of 
education must solve : (1) What is the aim of educa- 
tion ? (2) What is the nature of education ? (3) What 
is the nature of the child? (4) What are the most 
economical methods of changing the child from what 
it is into what it ought to be? 

The first question is a sociological question, and it is 
not difficult to find the answer. We have but to in- 
quire what the people wish their children to become. 
There is a pretty general agreement, at least in the 
same community, that children should be trained in a 
way that will make them socially efficient. Parents 
generally wish their children to become honest, truth- 
ful, sympathetic, and industrious. It should be the 
aim of education to accomplish this social ideal. It 
should be the aim of the home and the school to sub- 
ject children to such influences as will enable them to 
make a living when grown and to do their proper share 
of work for the community and state, working always 
for better things, and having a sympathetic attitude 
toward neighbors. Education should also do what it 
can to make people able to enjoy the world and life 
to the fullest and highest extent. Some such aim of 
education as this is held by all our people. 

The second question is also answered. Psychological 
analysis reveals the fact that education is a process of 
becoming adjusted to the world. It is the process of 
acquiring the habits, knowledge, and ideals suited to 



Introduction 11 



the life we are to live. The child in being educated 
learns what the world is and how to act in it — how to 
act in all the various situations of life. 

The third question — concerning the nature of the 
child — cannot be so briefly answered. In fact, it 
cannot be fully answered at the present time. We 
must know what the child's original nature is. This 
means that we must know the instincts and all the 
other inherited capacities and tendencies. We must 
know the laws of building up habits and of acquiring 
knowledge, the laws of retention and the laws of atten- 
tion. These problems constitute the subject matter 
of educational psychology, and at present can be only 
partially solved. We have, however, a very respect- 
able body of knowledge in this field, though it is by no 
means complete. 

The answer to the fourth question is in part de- 
pendent upon the progress in answering the third. 
Economical methods of training children must be 
dependent upon the nature of children. But in actual 
practice, we are trying to find out the best procedure 
of doing each single thing in school work ; we are try- 
ing to find out by experimentation. The proper way 
to teach children to read, to spell, to write, etc., must 
be determined in each case by independent investiga- 
tion, until our knowledge of the child becomes suffi- 
cient for us to infer from general laws of procedure 
what the procedure in a particular case should be. 
We venture to infer what ought to be done in some 
cases, but generally we feel insecure till we have proved 
our inference correct by trying out different methods 
and measuring the results. 

Education will not be fully scientific till we have 
definite knowledge to guide us at every step. What 



12 The Science of Human Nature 

should we teach? When should we teach it? How 
should we teach it? How poorly we answer these 
questions at the present time! How inefficient and 
uneconomical our schools, because we cannot fully 
answer them ! But they are answerable. We can 
answer them in part now, and we know how to find 
out the answer in full. It is just a matter of patient 
and extensive investigation. We must say, then, that 
we have only the beginnings of a science of education. 
The problems which a science of education must solve 
are almost wholly psychological problems. They 
could not be solved till we had a science of psychology. 
Experimental psychology is but a half-century old; 
educational psychology, less than a quarter-century 
old. In the field of education, the science of psy- 
chology may expect to make its most important prac- 
tical contribution. Let us, then, consider very briefly 
the problems of educational psychology. 

Educational Psychology. Educational psychology 
is that division of psychology which undertakes to dis- 
cover those aspects of human nature most closely re- 
lated to education. These are (1) the original nature 
of the child — what it is and how it can be modified ; 
(2) the problem of acquiring and organizing experience 
— habit-formation, memory, thinking, and the various 
factors related to these processes. There are many 
subordinate problems, such as the problem of individual 
differences and their bearing on the education of sub- 
normal and supernormal children. Educational psy- 
chology is not, then, merely the application of psy- 
chology to education. It is a distinct science in itself, 
and its aim is the solving of those educational prob- 
lems which for their solution depend upon a knowledge 
of the nature of the child. 



Introduction 13 



The Method of Psychology. We have enumerated 
the various problems of psychology, now how are they 
solved? The method of psychology is the same as 
that of all other sciences ; namely, the method of obser- 
vation and experiment. We learn human nature by 
observing how human beings act in all the various 
circumstances of life. We learn about the human 
mind by observing our own mind. We learn that we 
see under certain objective conditions, hear under cer- 
tain objective conditions, taste, smell, feel cold and 
warm under certain objective conditions. In the case 
of ourselves, we can know both our actions and our 
mind. In the case of others, we can know only their 
actions, and must infer their mental states from our 
own in similar circumstances. With certain restric- 
tions and precautions this inference is legitimate. 

We said the method of psychology is that of obser- 
vation and experiment. The experiment is observa- 
tion still, but observation subjected to exact methodical 
procedure. In a psychological experiment we set out 
to provide the necessary conditions, eliminating some 
and supplying others according to our object. The 
experiment has certain advantages. It enables us to 
isolate the phenomena to be studied, it enables us to 
vary the circumstances and conditions to suit our pur- 
poses, it enables us to repeat the observation as often as 
we like, and it enables us to measure exactly the factors 
of the phenomena studied. 

A Psychological Experiment. Let us illustrate psy- 
chological method by a typical experiment. Suppose 
we wish to measure the individual differences among the 
members of a class with respect to a certain ability; 
namely, the muscular speed of the right hand. Psy- 
chological laboratories have delicate apparatus for 



14 The Science of Human Nature 

making such a study. But let us see how we can do it, 
roughly at least, without any apparatus. Let each 
member of the class take a sheet of paper and a pencil, 
and make as many strokes as possible in a half-minute, 
as shown in Figure I. The instructor can keep the time 
with a stop watch, or less accurately with the second 

milwi)iiiiiiinjww/JW)))))imn\i 
//n//iljlj/mWiW)iwi)mm})i\)\i 

Figure I. — Strokes Made in Thirty Seconds 
A test of muscular speed 

hand of an ordinary watch. Before beginning the 
experiment, the instructor should have each student 
taking the test try it for a second or two. This is to 
make sure that all understand what they are to do. 
When the instructor is sure that all understand, he 
should have the students hold their pencils in readiness 
above the paper, and at the signal, " Begin,'' all should 
start at the same time and make as many marks as 
possible in the half -minute. The strokes can then be 
counted and the individual scores recorded. The ex- 
periment should be repeated several times, say six 
or eight, and the average score for each individual re- 
corded. 

Whether the result in such a performance as this 
varies from day to day, and is accidental, or whether 
it is constant and fundamental, can be determined by 
repeating the experiment from day to day. This repe- 
tition will also show whether improvement comes from 
practice. 



Introduction 15 



If it is decided to repeat the experiment in order to 
study these factors, constancy and the effects of prac- 
tice, some method of studying and interpreting the 
results must be found. Elaborate methods of doing 
this are known to psychologists, but the beginner must 
use a simpler method. When the experiment is per- 
formed for the first time, the students can be ranked 
with reference to their abilities, the fastest one being 
called ''first,'' the second highest, "second,'' and so on 
down to the slowest performer. Then after the experi- 
ment has been performed the second time, the students 
can be again ranked. 

A rough comparison can then be made as follows : 
Determine how many who were in the best half in the 
first experiment are among the best half in the second 
experiment. If most who were among the best half 
the first time are among the best half in the second 
experiment, constancy in this performance is indi- 
cated. Or we might determine how many change 
their ranks and how much they change. Suppose 
there are thirty in the class and only four improve 
their ranks and these to the extent of only two 
places each. This would indicate a high degree of 
constancy. Two different performances can be com- 
pared as above described. The abilities on succes- 
sive days can be determined by taking the average 
rank of the first day and comparing it with the average 
rank of the second day. 

If the effects of practice are to be studied, the experi- 
ments must be kept up for many days, and each stu- 
dent's work on the first day compared with his work 
on succeeding days. Then a graph can be plotted to 
show the improvement from day to day. The average 
daily speed of the class can be taken and a graph made 



16 The Science of Human Nature 

to show the improvement of the class as a whole. This 
might be plotted in black ink, then each individual 
student could put on his improvement in red ink, for 
comparison. A group of thirty may be considered as 
furnishing a fair average or norm in this kind of per- 
formance. 

In connection with this simple performance, making 
marks as fast as possible, it is evident that many prob- 
lems arise. It would take several months to solve 
anything like all of them. It might be interesting, for 
example, to determine whether one's speed in writing 
is related to this simple speed in marking. Each 
member of the class might submit a plan for making 
such a study. 

The foregoing simple study illustrates the procedure 
of psychology in all experimentation. A psychological 
experiment is an attempt to find out the truth in regard 
to some aspect of human nature. In finding out this 
truth, we must throw about the experiment all possible 
safeguards. Every source of error must be discovered 
and eliminated. In the above experiment, for example, 
the work must be done at the same time of day, or else 
we must prove that doing it at different times of day 
makes no difference. Nothing must be taken for 
granted, and nothing must be assumed. Psychology, 
then, is like all the other sciences, in that its method of 
getting its facts is by observation and experiment. 

Summary. Science is systematic, related knowledge. Each 
science has a particular field which it attempts to explore and 
describe. The field of psychology is the study of sensitivity, 
action, and consciousness, or briefly, human behavior. Its main 
problems are development, heredity, instincts, habits, sensation, 
memory, thinking, and individual differences. Its method is 
observation and experiment, the same as in all other sciences. 



Introduction 17 



CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Make out a list of things about human nature which you 
would like to know. Paste your list in the front of this book, 
and as you find your questions answered in this book, or in other 
books which you may read, check them off. At the end of the 
course, note how many remain unanswered. Find out whether 
those not answered can be answered at the present time. 

2. Does everything you do have a cause? What kind of 
cause ? 

3. Human nature is shown in human action. Human action 
consists in muscular contraction. What makes a muscle contract? 

4. Plan an experiment the object of which shall be to learn 
something about yourself. 

5. Enumerate the professions and occupations in which a 
knowledge of some aspect of human nature would be valuable. 
State in what way it would be valuable. 

6. Make a list of facts concerning a child, which a teacher 
ought to know. 

7. Make a complete outline of Chapter I. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

MUNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, Chapters I, 

II, and V. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapter I, 
Pylb : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapter I. 
Titchener: A Beginner's Psychology, Chapter I. 



CHAPTER II 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND OF THE 
INDIVIDUAL 

Racial Development. The purpose of this chapter is 
to make some inquiry concerning the origin of the race 
and of the individual. In doing this, it is necessary for 
us first of all to fix in our minds the idea of causality. 
According to the view of all modern science, every- 
thing has a cause. Nothing is uncaused. One event 
is the result of other previous events, and is in turn the 
cause of other events that follow. Yesterday flowed into 
to-day, and to-day flows into to-morrow. The world 
as it exists to-day is the result of the world as it existed 
yesterday. This is true not only of the inorganic 
world — the world of physics and chemistry — but it 
is true of living things as well. The animals and 
plants that exist to-day are the descendants of others 
that lived before. There is probably an unbroken line 
of descent from the first life that existed on the earth 
to the living forms of to-day. 

Not only does the law of causality hold true in the 
case of our bodies, but of our minds as well. Our minds 
have doubtless developed from simpler minds just as 
our bodies have developed from simpler bodies. That 
different grades and types of minds are to be found 
among the various classes of animals now upon the earth, 
no one can doubt, for the different forms certainly show 

18 



Development of Race and of Individual 19 

different degrees of mentality. According to the evi- 
dence of those scientists who have studied the remains of 
animals found in the earth's crust, there is a gradual de- 
velopment of animal forms shown in successive epochs. 
In the very oldest parts of the earth's crust, the remains 
of animal life found are very simple. In later forma- 
tions, the remains show an animal life more complex. 
The highest forms of animals, the mammals, are found 
only in the more recent formations. The remains of 
man are found only in the latest formations. 

Putting these two facts together — (1) that the 
higher types of mind are found to-day only in the 
higher types of animals, and (2) that a gradual devel- 
opment of animal forms is shown by the remains in the 
earth's crust — the conclusion is forced upon us that 
mind has passed through many stages of development 
from the appearance of life upon the earth to the present 
time. Among the lower forms of animals to-day one 
sees evidence of very simple minds. In amoebas, 
worms, insects, and fishes, mind is very simple. In 
birds, it is higher. In mammals, it is higher still. 
Among the highest mammals below man, we see 
manifestations of mind somewhat like our own. These 
grades of mentality shown in the animals of to-day 
represent the steps in the development of mind in the 
animals of the past. 

We cannot here go into the proof of the doctrine of 
development. For this proof, the reader must be 
referred to zoology. One further point, however, may 
be noted. If it is difficult for the reader to conceive 
of the development of mind on the earth similar to the 
development of animals in the past, let him think of 
the development of mind in the individual. There can 
certainly be no doubt of the development of mind in 



20 The Science of Human Nature 

an individual human being. The infant, when born, 
shows Httle manifestation of mentality ; but as its body- 
grows, its mind develops, becoming more and more 
complex as the individual grows to maturity. 

The World as Dynamic. The view of the world 
outlined above, and held by all scientific men of the 
present time, may be termed the dynamic view. Man 
formerly looked upon the world as static, a world where 
everything was fixed and final. Each thing existed in 
itself and for itself, and in large measure independent of 
all other things. We now look upon things and events 
as related and dependent. Each thing is dependent 
upon others, related to others. 

Man not only lives in such a world, but is part of such 
a world. In this world of constant and ceaseless change, 
man is most sensitive and responsive. Everything 
may affect him. To all of the constant changes about 
him he must adjust himself. He has been produced 
by this world, and to live in it he must meet its every 
condition and change. We must, then, look upon hu- 
man nature as something coming out of the past and as 
being influenced every moment by the things and forces 
of the present. Man is not an independent being, 
unaffected by everything that happens; on the con- 
trary, he is affected by all influences that act upon him. 
Among these influences may be mentioned weather, 
climate, food, and social forces. 

The condition of the various organs of a child's body 
determine, to some extent, the effect which these 
various forces have upon it. If a child's eyes are in 
any way defective, making vision poor, this tre- 
mendously influences his life. Not only is such a child 
unable to see the world as it really is, but the eyestrain 
resulting from poor vision has serious effects on the 



Development of Race and of Individual 21 

child, producing all sorts of disorders. If a child can- 
not hear well or is entirely deaf, many serious conse- 
quences follow. In fact, every condition or character- 
istic of a child that is in any way abnormal may lead 
on to other conditions and characteristics, often of a 
serious nature. The growth of adenoids, for example, 
may lead to a serious impairment of the mind. Poor 
vision may affect the whole life and character of the 
individual. The influence of a parent, teacher, or 
friend may determine the interest of a child and affect 
his whole life. The correct view of child life is that 
the child is affected, in greater or less degree, by every 
influence which acts upon him. 

Significance of Development and Causality. What 
are the consequences of the view just set forth ? What 
is the significance of the facts that have been enumer- 
ated ? It is of great consequence to our thinking when 
we come to recognize fully the idea of causality. We 
then fully accept the fact that man's body and mind 
are part of a causal and orderly world. 

Let us consider, for example, the movement of a 
muscle. Every such movement must be caused. The 
physiologist has discovered what this cause is. Ordi- 
narily and normally, a muscle contracts only when stim- 
ulated by a nerve current. Tiny nerve fibrils penetrate 
every muscle, ending in the muscle fibers. The nerve- 
impulse passing into the fibers of the muscles causes 
them to contract. The nerve stimulus itself has a 
cause ; it ordinarily arises directly or indirectly from the 
stimulation of a sense organ. And the sense organs 
are stimulated by outside influences, as was explained 
previously. 

Not only are our movements caused, but our sensa- 
tions, our ideas, and our feelings follow upon or are 



22 The Science of Human Nature 

dependent upon some definite bodily state or condition. 
The moment that we recognize this we see that our 
sensations, ideas, and feehngs are subject to control. 
It is only because our minds are in a world of causality, 
and subject to its laws, that education is possible. 
We can bring causes to bear upon a child and change 
the child. It is possible to build up ideas, ideals, and 
habits. And ideas, ideals, and habits constitute the 
man. Training is possible only because a child is a 
being that can be influenced. What any child will be 
when grown depends upon what kind of child it was 
at the beginning and upon the influences that affect it 
during its early life while it is growing into maturity. 
We need have no doubt about the outcome of any 
particular child if we know, with some degree of com- 
pleteness, the two sets of factors that determine his 
life — his inheritance and the forces that affect this 
inheritance. We can predict the future of a child to the 
extent that we know and understand the forces that will 
be effective in his life. 

The notion of causality puts new meaning into our 
view of the training of a child. The doctrine of devel- 
opment puts new meaning into our notion of the 
nature of a child. We can understand man only when 
we view him genetically, that is, in the light of his 
origin. We can understand a child only in the light of 
what his ancestors have been. 

As these lines are being written, the greatest, the 
bloodiest war of history is in progress. Men are killing 
men by thousands and hundreds of thousands. How 
can we explain such actions? Observation of children 
shows that they are selfish, envious, and quarrelsome. 
They will fight and steal until they are taught not to 
do such things. How can we understand this? There 



Development of Race and of Individual 23 

is no way of understanding such actions until we come 
to see that the children and men of to-day are such as 
they are because of their ancestors. It has been only 
a few generations, relatively speaking, since our an- 
cestors were naked savages, killing their enemies and 
eating their enemies' bodies. The civilized life of our 
ancestors covers a period of only a few hundred years. 
The pre-civilized life of our ancestors goes back prob- 
ably thousands and thousands of years. In the rela- 
tively short period of civilization, our real, original 
nature has been little changed, perhaps none at all. 
The modern man is, at heart, the same old man of the 
woods. 

The improvements of civilization form what is called 
a social heritage, which must be impressed upon the 
original nature of each individual in order to have any 
effect. Every child has to learn to speak, to write, to 
dress, to eat with knife and fork ; he must learn the vari- 
ous social customs, and to act morally as older people 
dictate. The child is by nature bad, in the sense that 
the nature which he inherits from the past fits him 
better for the original kind of life which man used to 
live than it does for the kind of life which we are trying 
to live now. This view makes us see that training a 
child is, in a very true sense, making him over again. 
The child must be trained to subdue and control his 
original impulses. Habits and ideals that will be suit- 
able for life in civilized society must he built up. The 
doctrine of the Bible in regard to the original nature of 
man being sinful, and the necessity of regeneration, is 
fundamentally correct. But this regeneration is not so 
much a sudden process as it is the result of long and 
patient building-up of habits and ideals. 

One should not despair of this view of child-life. 



24 The Science of Human Nature 

Neither should one use it as an excuse for being bad, 
or for neglecting the training of children. On the con- 
trary, taking the genetic view of childhood should give 
us certain advantages. It makes us see more clearly 
the necessity of training. Every child must be trained, 
or he will remain very much a savage. In the absence 
of training, all children are much alike, and all alike 
bad from our present point of view. The chief differ- 
ences in children in politeness and manners generally, 
in morals, in industry, etc., are due, in the main, to 
differences in training. It is a great help merely to 
know how difficult the task of training is, and that 
training there must be if we are to have a civilized child. 
We must take thought and plan for the education and 
training of our children. The task of education is in 
part one of changing human nature. This is no light 
task. It is one that requires, in the case of each child, 
some twenty years of hard, patient, persistent work. 

Individual Development. Heredity is a corollary 
of evolution. Individual development is intimately 
related to racial development. Indeed, racial develop- 
ment would be impossible without heredity in the in- 
dividual. The individual must carry on and transmit 
what the race hands down to him. This will be evi- 
dent when we explain what heredity means. 

By heredity we mean the likeness between parent and 
offspring. This likeness is a matter of form and struc- 
ture as well as likeness of action or response. Animals 
and plants are like the parents in form and structure, 
and to a certain extent their responses are alike when 
the individuals are placed in the same situation'. A 
robin is like the parent robins in size, shape, and color. 
It also hops like the parent birds, sings as they do, 
feeds as they do, builds a similar nest, etc. But the 



Development of Race and of Individual 25 

likeness in action is dependent upon likeness in struc- 
ture. The young robin acts as does the old robin, 
because the nervous mechanism is the same, and there- 
fore a similar stimulus brings about a similar response. 

Most of the scientific work in heredity has been done 
in the study of the transmission of physical character- 
istics. The main facts of heredity are evident to 
everybody, but not many people realize how far-reach- 
ing is the principle of resemblance between parent and 
offspring. From horses we raise horses. From cows 
we raise cows. The children of human beings are 
human. Not only is this true, but the offspring of 
horses are of the same stock as the parents. Not only 
are the colts of the same stock as the parents, but they 
resemble the parents in small details. This is also 
true of human beings. We expect a child to be not 
only of the same race as the parents, but to have family 
resemblances to the parents — the same color of hair, 
the same shape of head, the same kind of nose, the same 
color of eyes, and to have such resemblances as moles 
in the same places on the skin, etc. A very little in- 
vestigation reveals likenesses between parent and off- 
spring which we may not have expected before. 

However, if we start out to hunt for facts of heredity, 
we shall perhaps be as much impressed by differences 
between parent and child as we shall by the resem- 
blances. In the first place, every child has two parents, 
and it is often impossible to resemble both. One can- 
not, for example, be both short and tall ; one cannot 
be both fair and dark ; one cannot be both slender and 
heavy; one cannot have both brown eyes and blue. 
In some cases, the child resembles one parent and not 
the other. In other cases, the child looks somewhat 
like both parents but not exactly like either. If one 



26 The Science of Human Nature 

parent is white and the other black, the child is 
neither as white as the one parent nor as black as 
the other. 

The parents of a child are themselves different, but 
there are four grandparents, and each of them different 
from the others. There are eight great gTandparents, 
and all of them different. If we go back only seven 
generations, covering a period of perhaps only a hundred 
and fifty years, we have one hundred and twenty-eight 
ancestors. If we go back ten generations, we have over 
a thousand ancestors in our line of descent. Each of 
these people was, in some measure, different from the 
others. Our inheritance comes from all of them and 
from each of them. 

How do all of these diverse characteristics work out 
in the child ? In the first place, it seems evident that 
we do not inherit our bodies as wholes, but in parts or 
units. We may think of the human race as a whole 
being made up of a great number of unit characters. 
No one person possesses all of them. Every person is 
lacking in some of them. His neighbor may be lack- 
ing in quite different ones. Now one parent transmits 
to the child a certain combination of unit characters; 
the other parent, a different combination. These char- 
acteristics may not all appear in the child, but all are 
transmitted through it to the next generation, and they 
are transmitted purely. By being transmitted purely, 
we mean that the characteristic does not seem to lose 
its identity and disappear in fusions or mixtures. The 
essential point in this doctrine of heredity is known as 
Mendelism ; it is the principle of inheritance through 
the pure transmission of unit characters.'' 

An illustration will probably make the Mendelian 
principle clear. Let us select our illustration from the 



Development of Race and of Individual 27 

plant world. It is found that if white and yellow corn 
are crossed, all the corn the first year, resulting from this 
crossing, will be yellow. Now, if this hybrid yellow 
corn is planted the second year, and freely cross-ferti- 
lized, it turns out that one fourth of it will be white and 
three fourths yellow. But this yellow consists of three 
parts : one part being pure yellow which will breed true, 
producing nothing but yellow; the other two parts 
transmit white and yellow in equal ratio. That is to 
say, these two parts are hybrids, the result of crossing 
white with yellow. It is not meant that one can actu-. 
ally distinguish these two kinds of yellow, the pure 
yellow and the hybrid yellow, but the results from plant- 
ing it show that one third of the yellow is pure and that 
the other two thirds transmit white and yellow in equal 
ratio. 

The main point to notice in all this is that when two 
individuals having diverse characteristics are crossed, 
the characteristics do not fuse and disappear ultimately, 
but that the two characteristics are transmitted in 
equal ratio, and each will appear in succeeding genera- 
tions, and will appear pure, just as if it had not been 
crossed with something different. The first offspring 
resulting from the cross — known as hybrids — may 
show either one or the other of the diverse charac- 
teristics, or, when such a thing is possible, even a 
blending of the two characteristics. But whatever 
the actual appearance of the first generation of off- 
spring resulting from crossing parents having diverse 
characteristics, their germ-cells transmit the diverse 
characteristics in equal proportion, as explained above. 

When one of the diverse characteristics appears in 
the first generation of offspring and the other does not 
appear, or is not apparent, the one that appears is said 



28 The Science of Human Nature 

to be dominant, while the one not appearing is said to 
be recessive. In our example of the yellow and white 
corn, yellow is dominant and white recessive. And it 
must be remembered that the white corn that appears 
in the second generation will breed true just as if it 
had never been crossed with the yellow corn. One 
third of the yellow of the second generation would also 
breed true if it could be separated from the other two 
thirds. 

It is not here claimed that Mendelism is a universal 
principle, that all characteristics are transmitted in this 
way. However, the results of the numerous experi- 
ments in heredity lead one to expect this to be the case. 
Most of the experiments have been with lower animals 
and with plants, but recent experiments and statistical 
studies show that Mendelism is an important factor in 
human heredity, in such characteristics as color of hair 
and eyes and skin, partial color blindness, defects of 
eye, ear, and other important organs. 

The studies that have been made of human heredity 
have been, for the most part, studies of the transmission 
of physical characteristics. Very little has been done 
that bears directly upon the transmission of mental 
characteristics. But our knowledge of the dependence 
of mind upon body should prepare us to infer mental 
heredity from physical heredity. Such studies as throw 
light on the question bear us out in making such an in- 
ference. 

The studies that have been more directly concerned 
with mental heredity are those dealing with the resem- 
blances of twins, studies of heredity in royalty, studies 
of the inheritance of genius, and studies of the trans- 
mission of mental defects and defects of sense organs. 
The results of all these studies indicate the inheritance 



Development of Race and of Individual 29 

of mental characteristics in the same way that physical 
characteristics are transmitted. Not only are human 
mental characteristics transmitted from parent to off- 
spring, but they seem to be transmitted in Mendelian 
fashion. 

Feeble-mindedness, for example, seems to be a Men- 
delian character and recessive. From the studies 
that have been made, it seems that two congenitally 
feeble-minded parents will have only feeble-minded 
children. Feeble-mindedness acts in heredity as does 
the white corn in the example given above. If one parent 
only is feeble-minded, the other being normal, all of 
the children will be normal, just as all of the corn, in 
the first generation after the crossing, was yellow. 
But these children whose parents are the one normal 
and the other feeble-minded, while themselves normal, 
transmit feeble-mindedness in equal ratio with normal- 
ity. It works out as follows : If a feeble-minded person 
marry a person of sound mind and sound stock, the 
children will all be of sound, normal mind. If these 
children take as husbands and wives men and women 
who had for parents one normal and one feeble-minded 
person, their children will be one fourth feeble-minded 
and three fourths of them normal. 
^ To summarize the various conditions: If a feeble- 
minded person marry a feeble-minded person, all the 
children will be feeble-minded. If a feeble-minded 
person marry a sound, normal person (pure stock), 
all the children will be normal. If the children, in the 
last case, marry others like themselves as to origin, 
one fourth of their offspring will be feeble-minded. 
If such hybrid children marry feeble-minded persons, 
one half of the offspring will be feeble-minded.' It 
is rash to prophesy, but future studies of heredity 



30 The Science of Human Nature 

may show that Mendelism, or some modification of 
the principle, always holds true of mind as well as 
of body. 

Little can be said about the transmission of particu- 
lar definite mental traits, such as the various aspects 
of memory, association, attention, temperament, etc. 
Before we can speak with any certainty here, we must 
make very careful experimental studies of these mental 
traits in parents and offspring. No such work has been 
done. All we have at the present time is the result of 
general observation. 

Improvement of the Race. Eugenics is the science 
of improvement of the human race by breeding. While 
we can train children and thereby make them much 
better than they would be without such training, this 
training does not improve the stock. The improvement 
of the stock can be accomplished only through breed- 
ing from the best and preventing the poor stock from 
leaving offspring: This is a well-known principle in the 
breeding of domestic animals. 

It is doubtless just as true in the case of human 
beings. The hygienic and scientific rearing of children 
is good for the children and makes their lives better, 
but probably does not affect their offspring. We 
should not forget that all the social and educational 
influences die with the generation that receives them. 
They must be impressed by training on the next gen- 
eration or that generation will receive no influence from 
them. The characters which we acquire in our life- 
time seem not to be transmitted to our children, except 
through what is known as social heredity, which is 
merely the taking on of characteristics through imita- 
tion. Our children must go through all the labor of 
learning to read, write, spell, add, multiply, subtract. 



Development of Race and of Individual 31 

and divide, which we went through. Moral traits, 
manners and customs, and other habits and ideals of 
social importance must be acquired by each successive 
generation. 

Heredity versus Environment. The question is often 
asked whether heredity or the influence of environment 
has the most to do with the final outcome of one's life. 
It is a rather useless question to ask, for what a human 
being or anything else in the world does depends upon 
what it is itself and what the things and forces are that 
act upon it. Heredity sets a limitation for us, fixes 
the possibilities. The circumstances of life determine 
what we will do with our inherited abilities and 
characteristics. Hereditary influences incline us to be 
tall or short, fat or lean, light or dark. The charac- 
teristics of our memory, association, imagination, our 
learning capacity, etc., are determined by heredity. 
Of course, how far these various aspects develop is to 
some extent dependent upon the favorable or unfavor- 
able influences of the environment. What is possible 
for us to do is settled by heredity ; what we may actually 
do, what we may have the opportunity to do, is largely 
a matter of the circumstances of life. 

In certain parts of New England, the number of men 
who become famous in art, science, or literature is very 
great compared to the number in some other parts of 
our country. As far as we have any evidence, the 
native stocks are the same in the two cases, but in New 
England the influences turn men into the direction of 
science, art, and literature. Everything there is fa- 
vorable. In other parts of the country, the influences 
turn men into other spheres of activity. They become 
large landowners, men of business and affairs. 

The question may be asked whether genius makes its 



32 The Science of Human Nature 

way to the front in spite of unfavorable circumstances. 
Sometimes it doubtless does. But pugnacity and per- 
severance are not necessarily connected with intellectual 
genius. Genius may be as likely to be timid as belliger- 
ent. Therefore unfavorable circumstances may crush 
many a genius. 

The public schools ought to be on the watch for 
genius in any and all kinds of work. When a genius 
is found, proper training ought to be provided to 
develop this genius for the good of society as well as 
for the good of the individual himself. A few children 
show ability in drawing and painting, others in music, 
others in mechanical invention, some in literary con- 
struction. When it is found that this ability is un- 
doubtedly a native gift and not a passing whim, special 
opportunity should be provided for its development 
and training. It will be better for the general welfare, 
as well as for individual happiness, if each does in life 
that for which he is by nature best fitted. For most 
of us, however, there is not much difference in our 
abilities. We can do one thing as well as we can many 
other things. But in a few there are undoubted special 
native gifts. 

Summary. This is an orderly world, in which everything has a 
cause. All events are connected in a chain of causes and effects. 
Human beings live in this world of natural law and are subject 
to it. Human life is completely within this world of law and order 
and is a part of it. Education is possible only because we can 
change human beings by having influences act upon them. 

Individuals receive their original traits from their ancestors, 
probably as parts or units. Mendelism is the doctrine of the pure 
transmission of unit characters. Eugenics is the science of im- 
proving the human race by selective breeding. An individual's 
life is the result of the interaction of his hereditary characteristics 
and his environment. 



Development of Race and of Individual 33 



CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Try to find rock containing the remains of animals. You 
can get information on such matters from a textbook on geology. 

2. Read in a geology about the different geological epochs in 
the history of the earth. 

3. Make a comparison of the length of infancy in the lower 
animals and in man. What is the significance of what you find? 
What advantage does it give man? 

4. What is natural selection? How does it lead to change in 
animals? Does natural selection still operate among human 
beings? (See a modern textbook on zoology.) 

5. By observation and from consulting a zoology, learn about 
the different classes of animal forms, from low forms to high forms. 

6. By studying domestic animals, see what you can learn about 
heredity. Enumerate all the points that you find bearing upon 
heredity. 

7. In a similar way, make a study of heredity in your family. 
Consider such characteristics as height, weight, shape of head, 
shape of nose, hair and eye color. Can you find any evidence of 
the inheritance of mental traits? 

8. Make a complete outline of Chapter II. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

Davenport: Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. 
Kellicott : The Social Direction of Human Evolution. 



CHAPTER III 
MIND AND BODY 

Gross Dependence. The relation of mind to body 
has always been an interesting one to man. This is 
partly because of the connection of the question with 
that of life after death. An old idea of this relation, 
almost universally held till recently, was that the mind 
or spirit lived in the body but was more or less inde- 
pendent of the body. The body has been looked upon 
as a hindrance to the mind or spirit. Science knows 
nothing about the existence of spirits apart from bodies. 
The belief that after death the mind lives on is a matter 
of faith and not of science. Whether one believes in 
an existence of the mind after death of the body, de- 
pends on one's religious faith. There is no scientific 
evidence one way or the other. The only mind that 
science knows anything about is bound up very closely 
with body. This is not saying that there is no existence 
of spirit apart from body, but that at present such exist- 
ence is beyond the realm of science. 

The dependence of mind upon body in a general way 
is evident to every one, upon the most general observa- 
tion and thought. We know the effect on the mind of 
disease, of good health, of hunger, of fatigue, of over- 
work, of severe bodily injury, of blindness or deafness. 
We have, perhaps, seen some one struck upon the head 
by a club, or run over by an automobile, and have noted 

34 



Mind and Body 35 

the tremendous consequences to the person's mind. 
In such cases it sometimes happens that, as far as we 
can see, there is no longer any mind in connection with 
that body. The most casual observation, then, shows 
that mind and body are in some way most intimately 
related. 

Finer Dependence. Let us note this relation more in 
detail, and, in particular, see just which part of the body 
it is that is connected with the mind. First of all, we 
note the dependence of mind upon sense organs. We 
see only with our eyes. If we close the eyelids, we 
cannot see. If we are born blind, or if injury or dis- 
ease destroys the retinas of the eyes or makes the eyes 
opaque so that light cannot pass through to the retinas, 
then we cannot see. 

Similarly, we hear only by means of the ears. If we 
are born deaf, or if injury destroys some important 
part of the hearing mechanism, then we cannot hear. 
In like manner, we taste only by means of the taste 
organs in the mouth, and smell only with the organs of 
smell in the nose. In a word, our primary knowledge 
of the world comes only through the sense organs. 
We shall see presently just how this sensing or per- 
ceiving is accomplished. 

Dependence of Mind on Nerves and Brain. We 
have seen how in a general way the mind is dependent 
on the body. We have seen how in a more intimate 
way it is dependent on the special sense organs. But 
the part of the body to which the mind is most directly 
and intimately related is the nervous system. The 
sense organs themselves are merely modifications of the 
nerve ends together with certain mechanisms for en- 
abling stimuli to act on the nerve ends. The eye is 
merely the optic nerve spread out to form the retina and 



36 The Science of Human Nature 

modified in certain ways to make it sensitive to ether 
vibrations. In addition to this, there is, of course, the 
focusing mechanism of the eye. So for all the sense 
organs ; they are, each of them, some sort of modifica- 
tion of nerve-endings which makes them sensitive to 
some particular force or substance. 

Let us make the matter clear by an illustration. 
Suppose I see a picture on the wall. My eyes are 
directed toward the picture. Light from the picture 
is refracted within the eyes, forming an image on each 
retina. The retina is sensitive to the light. The light 
produces chemical changes on the retina. These changes 
set up an excitation in the optic nerves, which is con- 
ducted to a certain place in the brain, causing an exci- 
tation in the brain. Now the important point is that 
when this excitation is going on in the brain, we are 
conscious, we see the picture. 

As far as science can determine, we do not see, nor 
hear, nor taste, nor smell, nor have any other sensa- 
tion unless a sense organ is excited and produces the 
excitation in the brain. There can be no doubt about 
our primary, sensory experience. By primary, sensory 
experience is meant our immediate, direct knowledge of 
any aspect of the world. In this field of our conscious 
life, we are entirely dependent upon sense organs and 
nerves and brain. Injuries to the eyes destroying their 
power to perform their ordinary work, or injuries to 
the optic nerve or to the visual center in the brain, make 
it impossible for us to see. 

These facts are so self-evident that it seems useless 
to state them. One has but to hold his hands before 
his eyes to convince himself that the mind sees by 
means of eyes, which are physical sense organs. One 
has but to hold his hands tight over his ears to find 



Mind and Body 37 



out that he hears by means of ears — again, physical 
sense organs. 

But simple and self-evident as the facts are, their ac- 
ceptance must have tremendous consequences to our 
thinking, and to our view of human nature. If the 
mind is dependent in every feature on the body with 
its sense organs, this must give to this body and its sense 
organs an importance in our thought and scheme of 
things that they did not have before. This close 
dependence of mind upon body must give to the body 
a place in our scheme of education that it would not 
have under any other view of the mind. We wish to 
emphasize here that this statement of the close relation 
of the mind and body is not a theory which one may 
accept or not. It is a simple statement of fact. It is 
a presupposition of psychology. By " presupposition " 
is meant a fundamental principle which the psychologist 
always has in mind. It is axiomatic, and has the 
same place in psychology that axioms have in mathe- 
matics. All explanations of the working of the mind 
must be stated in terms of nerve and brain action, and 
stimulation of sense organs. 

Since the sense organs are the primary and funda- 
mental organs through which we get experience, and 
since the sensations are the elementary experiences out 
of which all mental life is built, it is necessary for us to 
have a clear idea of the sense organs, their structure and 
functions, and of the nature of sensations. 

Vision. The Visual Sense Organs. The details of the 
anatomy of the eye can be looked up in a physiological 
textbook. The essential principles are very simple. 
The eye is made on the principle of a photographer's 
camera. The retina corresponds to the sensitive plate 
of the camera. The light coming from objects toward 



38 The Science of Human Nature 

which the eyes are directed is focused on the retina, 
forming there an image of the object. The hght thus 
focused on the retina sets up a chemical change in the 
deUcate nerve tissue; this excitation is transmitted 
through the optic nerve to the occipital (back) part of 
the brain, and sets up brain action there. Then we 
have visual sensation ; we see the object. 

The different colors that we see are dependent upon 
the vibration frequency of the ether. The higher 
frequencies give us the colors blue and green, and the 
lower frequencies give us the colors yellow and red. 
The intermediate frequencies give us the intermediate 
colors blue-green and orange. By vibration frequencies 
is meant the rate at which the ether vibrates, the number 
of vibrations a second. If the reader wishes to know 
something about these frequencies, such information can 
be found in a textbook on physics. 

It will be found that the vibration rates of the ether 
are very great. It is only within a certain range of 
vibration frequency that sunlight affects the retina. 
Slower rates of vibration than that producing red do 
not affect the eye, and faster than that producing 
violet do not affect the eye. The lightness and dark- 
ness of a color are dependent upon the intensity of 
the vibration. Red, for example, is produced by a 
certain vibration frequency. The more intense the 
vibration, the brighter the red; the less intense, the 
darker the red. 

When all the vibration frequencies affect the eyes 
at the same time, we see no color at all but only 
brightness. This is due to the fact that certain vibra- 
tion frequencies neutralize each other in their effect 
on the retina, so far as producing color is concerned. 
Red neutralizes green, blue neutralizes yellow, violet 



Mind and Body 39 

neutralizes yellowish green, orange neutralizes bluish 
green. 

All variations in vision as far as color and brightness 
are concerned are due to variations in the stimulus. 
Changes in vibration frequency give the different colors. 
Changes in intensity give the different brightnesses : 
black, gray, and white. All explanations of the many 
interesting phenomena of vision are to be sought in the 
physiological action of the eye. 

Besides the facts of color and light and shade, already 
mentioned, some further interesting visual phenomena 
may be mentioned here. 

Visual Contrast. Every color makes objects near it 
take on the antagonistic or complementary color. 
Red makes objects near appear green, green makes them 
appear red. Blue makes near objects appear yellow, 
while yellow makes them appear blue. Orange in- 
duces greenish blue, and greenish blue induces orange. 
Violet induces yellowish green, and yellowish green in- 
duces violet. These color-pairs are known as antago- 
nistic or complementary colors. Each one of a pair 
enhances the effect of its complementary when the two 
colors are brought close together. In a similar way, 
light and dark tints act as complementaries. Light 
objects make dark objects near appear darker, and dark 
objects make light objects near seem lighter. 

These universal principles of contrast are of much 
practical significance. They must be taken account of 
in all arrangements of colors and tints, for example, 
in dress, in the arrangement of flowers and shrubs, in 
painting. 

Color-Mixture. If, on a rotating motor, disks of 
different colors — say red and yellow — are placed and 
rotated, one sees on looking at them not red or yellow 



40 The Science of Human Nature 

but orange. This phenomenon is known as color- 
mixture. The result is due to the simultaneous stimula- 
tion of the retina by two kinds of ether vibration. If 
the colors used are a certain red and a certain green, 
they neutralize each other and produce only gray. 
All the pairs of complementary colors mentioned above 
act in the same way, producing, if mixed in the right 
proportion, no color, but gray. If colored disks not 
complementary are mixed by rotation on a motor, they 
produce an intermediate color. Red and yellow give 
orange. Blue and green give bluish green. Yellow 
and green give yellowish green. Red and blue give 
violet or purple, depending on the proportion. Mixing 
pigments gives, in general, the same results as mixing 
by means of rotating the disks. The ordinary blue and 
yellow pigments give green when mixed, because each 
of the two pigments contains green. The blue and 
yellow neutralize each other, leaving green. 

Visual After-images. The stimulation of the retina 
has interesting after effects. We shall mention here 
only the one known as negative after-images. If one will 
place on the table a sheet of white paper, and on this 
white paper lay a small piece of colored paper, and if 
he will then gaze steadily at the colored paper for a 
half-minute, it will be found that if the colored paper 
is removed one sees its complementary color. If the 
head is not moved, this complementary color has the 
same size and shape as the original colored piece of 
paper. The negative after-image can be projected 
on a background at different distances, its size de- 
pending on the distance of the background. The after- 
image will be found to mix with an objective color 
in accordance with the principles of color-mixture 
mentioned above. 



Mind and Body 41 

After-image phenomena have some practical conse- 
quences. If one has been looking at a certain color for 
some time, a half-minute or more, then looks at some 
other color, the after-image of the first color mixes with 
the second color. 

Adaptation. The fact last mentioned leads us to the 
subject of adaptation. If the eyes are stimulated by 
the same kind of light for some time, the eyes become 
adapted to that light. If the light is yellow, at first 
objects seem yellow, but after a time they look as if 
they were illuminated with white light, losing the 
yellow aspect. But if one then goes out into white 
light, everything looks bluish. The negative after- 
image of the yellow being cast upon everything makes 
the surroundings look blue, for the after-image of yellow 
is blue. All the other colors act in a similar way, as do 
also black and white. If one has been for some time in 
a dark room and then goes out to a lighter place, it seems 
unusually light. And if one goes from the light to a 
dark room, it seems unusually dark. 

Hearing or Audition. Just as the eye is an organ 
sensitive to certain frequencies of ether vibration, so 
the ear is an organ sensitive to certain air vibrations. 
The reader should familiarize himself with the physiol- 
ogy of the ear by reference to physiologies. The drum- 
skin, the three little bones of the middle ear, and the 
cochlea of the inner ear are all merely mechanical 
means of making possible the stimulation of the 
specialized endings of the auditory nerve by vibra- 
tions of air. 

As the different colors are due to different vibration 
frequencies of the ether, so different pitches of sound 
are due to differences in the rates of the air vibrations. 
The low bass notes are produced by the low vibration 



42 The Science of Human Nature 

frequencies. The high notes are produced by the high 
vibration frequencies. The lowest notes that we can 
hear are produced by about twenty vibrations a second, 
and the highest by about forty thousand vibrations a 
second. 

Other Sense Organs. We need not give a detailed 
statement of the facts concerning the other senses. In 
each case the sense organ is some special adaptation of 
the nerve-endings with appropriate apparatus in con- 
nection to enable it to be affected by some special 
thing or force in the environment. 

In the case of taste, we find in the mouth, chiefly on 
the back and edges of the tongue, organs sensitive to 
sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. In the nose we have an 
organ that is sensitive to the tiny particles of substances 
that float in the air which we breathe in through the 
nose. 

In the skin we find several kinds of sense organs that 
give us the sensations of cold and warmth, of pressure 
and pain. These are all special and definite sensations 
produced by different kinds of organs. The sense of 
warmth is produced by different organs from those 
which produce the sense of cold. These organs can be 
detected and localized on the skin. So, also, pain and 
touch or pressure have each its particular organ. 

Within the body itself we have sense organs also, par- 
ticularly in the joints and tendons and in the muscles. 
These give us the sensations which are the basis of our 
perception of motion, and of the position of the body and 
its members. In the semicircular canals of the inner ear 
are organs that give us the sense of dizziness, and enable 
us to maintain our equilibrium and to know up from 
down. 

The general nature of the sense organs and of sensa- 



Mind and Body 43 

tion should now be apparent. The nervous system 
reaches out its myriad fingers to every portion of the 
surface of the body, and within the body as well. These 
nerve-endings are specially adapted to receive each its 
particular form of stimulation. This stimulation of 
our sense organs is the basis or cause of our sensations. 
And our sensations are the elementary stuff of all our 
experience. Whatever thoughts we have, whatever 
ideas or images we have, they come originally from our 
sensations. They are built up out of our sensations or 
from these sensations as they exist in memory. 

Defects of Sense Organs. The organs of sight and 
hearing are now by far the most important of our sense 
organs. They enable us to sense things that are at a 
distance. We shall therefore discuss defects of these 
two organs only. Since sensations are the primary 
stuff out of which mind is made, and since sight and 
hearing are the most important sense organs, it is evi- 
dent that our lives are very much dependent on these 
organs. If they cannot do their work well, then we are 
handicapped. And this is often the case. 

The making of the human eye is one of the most 
remarkable achievements of nature. But the making 
of a perfect eye is too big a task for nature. She never 
makes a perfect eye. There is always some defect, 
large or small. To take plastic material and make 
lenses and shutters and curtains is a great task. The 
curvature of the front of the eye and of the front and 
back of the crystalline lens is never quite perfect, but 
in the majority of cases it is nearly enough perfect to 
give us good vision. However, in about one third of 
school children the defect is great enough to need to 
be corrected by glasses. 

The principle of the correction of sight by means of 



44 The Science of Human Nature 

glasses is merely this : ^ When the focusing apparatus 
of the eye is not perfect, it can be made so by putting 
in front of the eye the proper kind of lens. There is 
nothing strange or mysterious about it. In some cases, 
the eye focuses the light before it reaches the retina. 
Such cases are known as nearsightedness and are cor- 
rected by having placed in front of the eyes concave 
lenses of the proper strength. These lenses diverge the 
rays and make them focus on the retina. In other 
cases, the eye is not able to focus the rays by the time 
they reach the retina. In these cases, the eyes need the 
help of convex lenses of the proper strength to make 
the focus fall exactly on the retina. 

Another defect of the eye, known as astigmatism, is 
due to the fact that the eye does not always have a 
perfectly spherical front (cornea). The curvature in 
one direction is different from that in others. For 
example, the vertical curvature may be more convex 
than the horizontal. Such a condition produces a 
serious defect of vision. It can be corrected by means 
of cylindrical lenses of the proper strength so placed 
before the eye as to correct the defect in curvature. 

Still another defect of vision is known as presbyopia 
or farsightedness due to old age. It has the following 
explanation : In early life, when we look at near 
objects, the crystalline lens automatically becomes 
thicker, more convex. This adjustment brings the 
rays to a focus on the retina, which is required for good 
vision. As we get old, the crystalline lens loses its 
power to change its adjustment for near objects, al- 

1 The teacher should explain these principles and illustrate by 
drawings. Consult a good text in physiology. Noyes' University 
of Missouri Extension Bulletin on eye and ear defects will be 
found most useful. 



Mind and Body 45 

though the eye may see at a distance as well as ever. 
The old person, therefore, must wear convex glasses 
when looking at near objects, as in reading and sewing. 

Another visual defect of a different nature is known 
as partial color blindness. The defects described 
above are due to misshapen eyes. Partial color blind- 
ness is due to a defect of the retina which makes 
it unable to be affected by light waves producing red 
and green. A person with this defect confuses red 
and green. While only a small percentage of the popu- 
lation has this defect, it is nevertheless very impor- 
tant that those having it be detected. People hav- 
ing the defect should not be allowed to enter occupations 
in which the seeing of red and green is important. It 
was recently brought to the author's attention that a 
partially color-blind man was selling stamps in a post 
office. Since two denominations of stamps are dis- 
tinguished by red and green colors, this man made 
frequent mistakes. He was doing one of the things for 
which he was specially unfitted. It is easy to detect 
color blindness by simple tests. 

So great is the importance of good vision in school 
work and the later work of life, that every teacher 
should know how to make simple tests to determine 
visual defects. Children showing any symptoms of 
eyestrain should be required to have their visual defects 
corrected by a competent oculist, and should be warned 
not to have the correction made by a quack. There 
is great popular ignorance and even prejudice concern- 
ing visual defects, and it is very important that teachers 
have a clear understanding of the facts. 

Defects of Hearing. Hearing defects are only about 
half as frequent as those of sight. They are nearly all 
due to catarrhal infection of the middle ear through 



46 The Science of Human Nature 

the Eustachian tube. The careful and frequent medical 
examination of school children cannot, therefore, be too 
strongly emphasized. The deafness or partial deafness 
that comes from this catarrhal infection can seldom 
be cured ; it must be prevented by the early treatment 
of the troubles which cause it. 



Summary. The mind is closely related to the body. Especially 
is it dependent upon the brain, nerves, and sense organs. The 
sense organs are special adaptations of the nerve-ends for receiving 
impressions. Each sense organ receives only its particular type 
of impression. 

The main visual phenomena are those of color-mixture, after- 
images, adaptation, and contrast. Since sensation is the basis 
of mental life, defects of the sense organs are serious handicaps 
and should be corrected if possible. Visual defects are usually 
due to a misshapen eyeball and can be corrected by proper glasses, 
which should be fitted by an oculist. Hearing defects usually 
arise from catarrhal trouble in the middle ear. 



CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Make a study of the relation of the mind to the body. 
Enumerate the different lines of evidence which you may find 
indicating their close relationship. 

2. Can you find any evidence tending to show that the mind 
is independent of the body? 

3. Color-Mixture. Colored disks can be procured from C. H. 
Stoelting Company, Chicago. If a small motor is available, 
the disks can be rotated on the motor and the colors mixed. Mix 
pairs of complementary colors, also pairs of non-complementary 
colors, and note the result. A simple device can be made for mix- 
ing colors, as follows : On a board stand a pane of glass. On one 
side of the glass put a colored paper and on the other side of the 
glass put a different color. By looking through the glass you can 
see one color through transmitted light and the other color through 
reflected light. By inclining the glass at different angles you can 
get different proportions of the mixture, now more of one color, 
now more of the other. 



Mind and Body 47 

4. Negative After-Images. Cut out pieces of colored paper a 
half inch square. Put one of these on a white background on the 
table. With elbows on the table, hold the head in the hands and 
gaze at the colored paper for about a half-minute, then blow the 
paper away and continue to gaze at the white background. Note 
the color that appears. Use different colors and tabulate the 
results. Try projecting the after-images at different distances. 
Project the after-images on different colored papers. Do the 
after-images mix with the colors of the papers? 

5. An interesting experiment with positive after-images can 
be performed as follows : Shut yourself in a dark closet for fifteen 
or twenty minutes to remove all trace of stimulation of the retina. 
With the eyes covered with several folds of thick black cloth go to 
a window, uncover the eyes and take a momentary look at the 
landscape, immediately covering the eyes again. The landscape 
will appear as a positive after-image, with the positive colors and 
lights and shades. The experiment is best performed on a bright 
day. 

6. Adaptation. Put on colored glasses or hold before the 
eyes a large piece of colored glass. Note that at first everything 
takes on the color of the glass. What change comes over objects 
after the glasses have been worn for fifteen or twenty minutes? 
Describe your experience after removing the glasses. Plan and 
perform other experiments showing adaptation. For illustration, 
go from a very bright room into a dark room. Go from a very 
dark room to a light one. Describe your experience. 

7. Contrast. Take a medium gray paper and lay it on white 
and various shades of gray and black paper. Describe and ex- 
plain what you find. 

8. Color Contrast. Darken a room by covering all the windows 
except one window pane. Cover it with cardboard. In the card- 
board cut two windows six inches long and one inch wide. Over 
one window put colored glass or any other colored material through 
which some light will pass. By holding up a pencil you can cast 
two shadows on a piece of paper. What color are the shadows? 
One is a contrast color induced by the other; which one? Ex- 
plain the results. 

9. Make a study of the way in which women dress. What do 
you learn about color effects? 

10. From the Stoelting Company you can obtain the Holmgren 
worsteds for studying color blindness. 



48 The Science of Human Nature 

11. Defective Vision. Procure a Snellen's test chart and deter- 
mine the visual acuity of the members of the class. Seat the 
subject twenty feet from the chart, which should be placed in a 
good light. While testing one eye, cover the other with a piece 
of cardboard. Above each row of letters on the chart is a number 
which indicates the distance at which it can be read by a normal 
eye. If the subject can read only the thirty-foot line, his vision 
is said to be |^ ; if only the forty-foot line, the vision is |§. If the 
subject can read above the twenty-foot line and complains of head- 
ache from reading, farsightedness is indicated. If the subject can- 
not read up to the twenty-foot line, nearsightedness or astigmatism 
is indicated. 

12. Hearing. By consultation with the teacher of physics, 
plan an experiment to show that the pitch of tones depends on 
vibration frequency. Such an experiment can be very simply 
performed by rotating a wheel having spokes. Hold a light stick 
against the spokes so that it strikes each spoke. If the wheel is 
rotated so as to give twenty or thirty strokes a second, a very low 
tone will be heard. By rotating the wheel faster you get a higher 
tone. Other similar experiments can be performed. 

13. Acuity of hearing can be tested by finding the distance at 
which the various members of the class can hear a watch-tick. 
The teacher can plan an experiment using whispering instead of 
the watch-tick. (See the author's Examination of School Chil- 
dren.) 

14. By using the point of a nail, one can find the "cold spots" 
on the skin. Warm the nail to about 40 degrees Centigrade and 
you can find the "warm spots." 

15. By touching the hairs on the back of the hand, you can 
stimulate the "pressure spots." 

16. By pricking the skin with the point of a needle, you can 
stimulate the "pain spots." 

17. The sense of taste is sensitive only to solutions that are 
sweet, sour, salt, or bitter. Plan experiments to verify this point. 
What we call the "taste" of many things is due chiefly to odor. 
Therefore in experiments with taste, the nostrils should be stopped 
up with cotton. It will be found, for example, that quinine and 
coffee are indistinguishable if their odors be eliminated by stopping 
the nose. The student should compare the taste of many sub- 
stances put into the mouth with the nostrils open with the taste 
of the same substances with the nostrils closed. 



Mind and Body 49 



REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN AND Bagley: Human Behavior, Chapters VII and XII. 
MiJNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, Chapters III, 

IV, VI, and VII. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapters II, III, and IV. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapter II. 
Titchener: A Beginner's Psychology, Chapter I, par. 3; also 

Chapter II. 



CHAPTER IV 
INHERITED TENDENCIES 

Stimulus and Response. We have learned something 
about the sense organs and their functions. We have 
seen that it is through the sense organs that the world 
affects us, stimulates us. And we have said that we 
are stimulated in order that we may respond. 

We must now inquire into the nature of our responses. 
We are moving, active beings. But how do we move, 
how do we act when stimulated? Why do we do one 
thing rather than another? Why do we do one thing 
at one time and a different thing at another time? 

Before we answer these questions it will be necessary 
for us to get a more definite and complete idea of the 
nature of stimulus and response. We have already used 
these terms, but we must now give a more definite ac- 
count of them. It was said in the preceding chapter 
that when a muscle contracts, it must first receive a 
nerve-impulse. Now, anything which starts this nerve- 
impulse is called the stimulus. The muscular move- 
ment which follows is, of course, the response. The 
nervous system forms the connection between the 
stimulus and response. 

The stimulus which brings about a response may be 
very simple. Or, on the other hand, it may be very 
complex. If one blows upon the eyelids of a baby, 
the lids automatically close. The blowing is the stimu- 

50 



Inherited Tendencies 51 

lus and the closing of the lids is the response. Both 
stimulus and response are here very simple. 

But sometimes the stimulus is more complex, not 
merely the simple excitation of one sense organ, but a 
complicated stimulation of an organ, or the simulta- 
neous stimulation of several organs. In playing ball, 
the stimulus for the batter is the on-coming ball. The 
response is the stroke. This case is much more complex 
than the reflex closing of the eyelids. The ball may 
be pitched in many different ways and the response 
changes with these variations. 

In piano playing, the stimulus is the notes written in 
their particular places on the staff. Not only must the 
position of the notes on the staff be taken into account, 
but also many other things, such as sharps and flats, 
and various characters which give directions as to the 
manner in which the music is to be played. The strik- 
ing of the notes in the proper order, in the proper time, 
and with the proper force, is the response. 

In t5rpewriting, the stimulus is the copy, or the idea 
of what is to be written, and the response is the striking 
of the keys in the proper order. Speaking generally, 
we may say that the stimulus is the force or forces which 
excite the sense organs, and thereby, through the nerv- 
ous system, bring about a muscular response. 

This is the ordinary type of action, but we have al- 
ready indicated a different type. In speaking of type- 
writing we said the stimulus might be either the copy 
or ideas. One can write from copy or dictation, in 
which the stimulus is the written or spoken word, but 
one can also write as one thinks of what one wishes 
to write. The latter is known as centrally initiated 
action. That is to say, the stimulus comes from within, 
in the brain, rather than from without. 



52 The Science of Human Nature 

Let us explain this kind of stimulation a little further. 
Suppose I am sitting in my chair reading. I finish a 
chapter and look at my watch. I notice that it is three 
o'clock, and recall that I was to meet a friend at that 
time. The stimulus in this case is in the brain itself ; 
it is the nervous activity which corresponds to the idea 
of meeting my friend. If we disregard the distinction 
between mind and body, we may say that the stimulus 
for a response may be an idea as well as a perception, 
the perception arising from the immediate stimulation 
of a sense organ, and the idea arising from an excitation 
of the brain not caused by an immediate stimulation 
of a sense organ. 

Instincts and Habits. In human action it is evident 
that there is always a stimulus to start the nerve- 
impulse which causes the action. If we make inquiry 
concerning the connection between the stimulus and 
response ; if we ask how it has come about that a par- 
ticular stimulus causes a particular response rather than 
some other possible response, we find two kinds of causes. 
In one case the causal connection is established through 
heredity ; in the other, the causal connection is estab- 
lished during a person's lifetime through training. 

A chicken, for example, hides under some cover the 
first time it hears the cry of a hawk; it scratches 
the first time its feet touch sand or gravel ; it pecks the 
first time it sees an insect near by. An infant closes 
its eyes the first time it feels cold wind blow upon 
them; it cries the first time it feels pain; it clasps 
its fingers together the first time a touch is felt inside 
them. The child's nervous system is so organized 
that, in each of the cases named, the stimulus brings 
forth the particular, definite response. These acts do 
not have to be learned. 



Inherited Tendencies 53 

But it is quite different in typewriting and piano 
playing. One must learn what keys on the piano to 
strike in response to the various situations of the notes 
as written in the music. One must also learn the keys 
on the typewriter before he can operate a typewriter. 
And in the case of other habits, we find, for example, 
that one does not respond by saying " 81 " for 9 times 
9; nor "13" for 6 plus 7; nor "8" for 15 minus 7; 
nor " 8 " for the square root of 64 ; nor " 144 " for the 
square of 12, etc., until one has learned in each case. 
- Some connections between stimulus and response we 
have through inheritance ; all others are built up and 
established in one's lifetime, particularly in the first 
thirty years of one's life. 

We have spoken of bonds between stimulus and 
response, but have not explained just what can be 
meant by a bond. In what sense are stimulus and re- 
sponse bound together? A bond is a matter of greater 
permeability, of less resistance in one direction through 
the nervous system than in other directions. Nerves 
are conductors for nerve-currents. When a nerve- 
current is started in a sense organ, it passes on through 
the path of least resistance. 

Now, some nerves are so organized and connected 
through inheritance as to offer small resistance. This 
forms a ready-made connection between stimulus and 
response. Muscular responses that are connected with 
their stimuli through inherited bonds, by inherited 
nerve structure, are called instincts. Those that are 
connected by acquired bonds are called habits. Suck- 
ing, crying, laughing, are instinctive acts. Adding, 
typewriting, piano playing, are habits. 

The term instinct may be given to the act depending 
upon inherited structure, an inherited bond, or it may 



54 The Science of Human Nature 

be given to the inherited bond itself. Similarly, the 
term habit may be given to an act that we have had 
to learn or to the bond which we ourselves establish 
between response and stimulus. In this book we shall 
usually mean by instinct an action depending upon 
inherited structure and by habit an act depending 
upon a bond established during lifetime. A good part 
of our early lives is spent in building up bonds between 
stimuli and responses. This establishing of bonds or 
connections is called learning. 

Appearance of Inherited Tendencies. Not all of our 
inherited tendencies are manifested immediately after 
birth, nor indeed in the earliest years of childhood, 
but appear at different stages of the child's growth. 
It has already been said that a child, soon after birth, 
will close its eyelids when they are blown upon. The 
lids do not close at this time if one strikes at them, but 
they will do this later. The proper working of an in- 
stinct or an inherited tendency, then, depends upon the 
child's having reached a certain state of development. 

The maturing of an instinct depends upon both age 
and use, that is to say, upon the age of the animal 
and the amount of use or exercise that the instinctive 
activity has had. The most important factor, however, 
seems to be age. While our knowledge of the depend- 
ence of an instinct upon the age of the animal is not 
quite so definite in the case of human instincts, the 
matter has been worked out in the case of chickens. 

The experiment was as follows : Chickens were taken 
at the time of hatching, and some allowed to peck from 
the first, while others were kept in a dark room and not 
allowed to peck. When the chickens were taken out 
of the dark room at the end of one, two, three, and four 
days, it was found that in a few hours they were peck- 



Inherited Tendencies 55 

ing as well as those that had been pecking from birth. 
It seems probable, if we may judge from our limited 
knowledge, that in the human child, activities are for 
the most part dependent upon the age of the child, and 
upon the state of development of the nervous system 
and of the organs of the body. 

Significance of Inherited Tendencies. Although 
human nature is very complex, although human action 
nearly always has some element of habit in it, never- 
theless, inborn tendencies are throughout life powerful 
factors in determining action. This will at once be ap- 
parent if we consider how greatly we are influenced by 
anger, jealousy, love, fear, and competition. Now we 
do not have to learn to be jealous, to hate, to love, to 
be envious, to fight, or to fear. These are emotions 
common to all members of the human race, and their 
expression is an inborn tendency. Throughout life 
no other influences are so powerful in determining our 
action as are these. So, although most of our detailed 
actions in life are habits which we learn or acquire, the 
fundamental influences which decide the course of our 
action are inherited tendencies. 

Classification of Instincts. For convenience in treat- 
ment the instincts are grouped in classes. Those in- 
stincts most closely related to individual survival are 
called individualistic instincts. Those more closely re- 
lated to the survival of the group are called socialistic. 
Those individualistic tendencies growing out of periodic 
changes of the environment may be called environmental 
instincts. Those closely related to human infancy, 
adapting and adjusting the child to the world in which 
he lives, may be called adaptive. There is still another 
group of inherited tendencies connected with sex and 
reproduction, which are not discussed in this book. 



56 The Science of Human Nature 

We shall give a brief discussion of the instincts falling 
under these various classes. It must be remembered, 
however, that the psychology of the instincts is indefi- 
nite and obscure. It is difficult to bring the instincts 
into the laboratory for accurate study. For our 
knowledge of the instincts we are dependent, for the 
most part, on general observation. We have had a few 
careful studies of the very earliest years of childhood. 
However, although from the theoretical point of view 
our knowledge of the instincts is incomplete, it is suffi- 
cient to be of considerable practical value. 

The Individualistic Instincts. Man's civilized life 
has covered but a short period of time, only a few hun- 
dred or a few thousand years. His pre-civilized life 
doubtless covered a period of millions of years. The 
inborn tendencies in us are such as were developed in 
the long period of savage life. During all of man's life 
in the time before civilization, he was always in danger. 
He had many enemies, and most of these enemies had 
the advantage of him in strength and natural means of 
defense. Unaided by weapons, he could hardly hold his 
own against any of the beasts of prey. So there were 
developed in man by the process of natural selection 
many inherited responses which we group under the 
head of fear responses. 

Just what the various situations are that bring forth 
these responses has never been carefully worked out. 
But any situation that suddenly puts an individual in 
danger of losing his life brings about characteristic 
reactions. The most characteristic of the responses 
are shown in connection with circulation and respira- 
tion. Both of these processes are much interfered with. 
Sometimes the action is accelerated, at other times it 
is retarded, and in some cases the respiratory and cir- 



Inherited Tendencies 57 

culatory organs are almost paralyzed. Also the small 
muscles of the skin are made to contract, producing the 
sensation of the hair standing on end. Just what the 
original use of all these responses was it is difficult now 
to work out, but doubtless each served some useful 
purpose. 

Whether any particular situations now call forth in- 
herited fear responses in us is not definitely established. 
But among lower animals there are certain definite 
and particular situations which do call forth fear re- 
sponses. On the whole, the evidence rather favors the 
idea of definite fear situations among children. It 
seems that certain situations do invariably arouse fear 
responses. To be alone in the dark, to be in a strange 
place, to hear loud and sudden noises, to see large, 
strange animals coming in threatening manner, seem 
universally to call forth fear responses in children. 

However, the whole situation must always be con- 
sidered. A situation in which the father or mother 
is present is quite different from one in which they 
are both absent. But it is certain that these and other 
fears are closely related to the age and development of 
the child. In the earlier years of infancy, certain fears 
are not present that are present later. And it can be 
demonstrated that the fears that do arise as infancy 
passes on are natural and inherited and not the result 
of experience. 

Few of the original causes of fear now exist. The orig- 
inal danger was from wild animals chiefly. Seldom are 
we now in such danger. But of course this has been the 
case for only a short time. Our bodies are the same sort 
of bodies that our ancestors had, therefore we are full 
of needless fears. During the early years of a child's 
life, wise treatment causes most of the fear tendencies 



58 The Science of Human Nature 

to disappear because of disuse. On the other hand, un- 
wise treatment may accentuate and perpetuate them, 
causing much misery and unhappiness. Neither the 
home nor the school should play upon these ancestral 
fears. We should not try to get a child to be good by 
frightening him ; nor should we often use fear of pain as 
an incentive to get a child to do his work. 

Man has always been afraid, but he has also always 
been a fighter. He has always had to fight for his life 
against the lower animals, and he has also fought his fel- 
low man. The fighting response is connected with the 
emotions of anger, envy, and jealousy. A man is an- 
gered by anything that interferes with his life, with his 
purposes, with whatever he calls his own. We become 
angry if some one strikes our bodies, or attacks our 
beliefs, or the beliefs of our dear friends, particularly 
of our families. The typical responses connected with 
anger are such as faster heart-beat, irregular breathing, 
congestion of the blood in the face and head, tightening 
of the voluntary muscles, particularly a setting of the 
teeth and a clinching of the fists. These responses 
are preparatory to actual combat. 

Anger, envy, and jealousy, and the responses growing 
out of them, have always played a large part in the life 
of man. A great part of history is a record of the 
fights of nations, tribes, and individuals. If the records 
of wars and strifes, and the acts growing out of envy and 
jealousy and other similar emotions should be taken 
out of history, there would not be much left. Much 
of literature and art depict those actions of man which 
grew out of these individualistic aspects of his nature. 
Competition, which is an aspect of fighting, even to 
the present day, continues to be one of the main factors 
in business and in life generally. Briefly, fighting re- 



Inherited Tendencies 59 

sponses growing out of man's selfishness are as old as 
man himself, and the inherited tendencies connected 
with them are among the strongest of our natures. 

In the training of children, one of the most difficult 
tasks is to help them to get control over the fighting 
instinct and other selfish tendencies. These tendencies 
are so deeply rooted in our natures that it is hard to get 
control of them. In fact, the control which we do get 
over them is always relative. The best we can hope 
to do is to get control over our fighting tendencies in 
ordinary circumstances. 

It is doubtful whether it would be good for us if the 
fighting spirit should disappear from the race. It puts 
vim and determination into the life of man. But our 
fighting should not be directed against our fellow man. 
The fighting spirit can be retained and directed against 
evil and other obstacles. We can learn to attack our 
tasks in a fighting spirit. But surely the time has come 
when we should cease fighting against our neighbors. 

Social Tendencies. Over against our fighting tend- 
encies we may set the socialistic tendencies. Coopera- 
tive and sympathetic actions grow out of original 
nature, just as truly as do the selfish acts. But the so- 
cialistic tendencies are not, in general, as strong as are 
the individualistic ones. What society needs is the 
strengthening of the socialistic tendencies by use, and 
a weakening of at least some of the individualistic tend- 
encies, by control and disuse. 

Socialistic tendencies show themselves in gangs and 
clubs formed by children and adults. It is, therefore, 
a common practice now to speak of the " gang " in- 
stinct. Human beings are pleased and content when 
with other human beings and not content, not satisfied, 
when alone. Of course circumstances make a differ- 



60 The Science of Human Nature 

ence in the desires of men, but the general original tend- 
ency is as stated. 

The gang of the modern city has the following ex- 
planation : Boys like to be with other boys. More- 
over, they like to be active ; they want to be doing some- 
thing. The city does not provide proper means for the 
desired activities, such as hunting, fishing, tramping, 
and boating. It does not provide experiences with 
animals, such as boys have on the farm. Much of the 
boy's day is spent in school in a kind of work not at all 
like what he would do by choice. There is not much 
home life. Usually there is not the proper parental 
control. Seldom do the parents interest themselves 
in planning for the activities of their children. The 
result is that the boys come together on the streets 
and form a club or gang. Through this organization 
the boy's nature expresses itself. Without proper 
guidance from older people, this expression takes a 
direction not good for the future character and use- 
fulness of the boy. 

The social life of children should be provided for by 
the school in cooperation with the home. The school 
or the schoolroom should constitute a social unit. The 
teacher with the parents should plan the social life of the 
children. The actual work of the school can be very 
much socialized. There can be much more coopera- 
tion and much more group work can be done in the 
school than is the case at present. And many other 
social activities can be organized in connection with the 
school and its work. Excursions, pageants, shows, pic- 
nics, and all sorts of activities should be undertaken. 

The schoolhouse should be used by the community 
as the place for many of its social acts and performances. 
Almost every night, and throughout the summer as 



Inherited Tendencies 61 

well as in the winter, the people, young and old, should 
meet at the school for some sort of social work or play. 
The Boy Scouts should be brought under the control of 
the school to help fulfill some of its main purposes. 

Environmental Instincts. In this class there are at 
least two tendencies which seem to be part of the origi- 
nal nature of man; namely, the wandering and the 
collecting tendencies. 

Wandering. The long life that our ancestors lived 
free and unrestrained in the woods has left its effect 
within us. One of the greatest achievements of civili- 
zation has been to overcome the inherited tendencies 
to roam and wander, to the extent that for the most 
part we live out our lives in one home, in one family, 
doing often but one kind of work all our lives. Origi- 
nally, man had much more freedom to come and go and 
do whatever he wished. 

Truancies and runaways are the result of original 
tendencies and desires expressing themselves in spite 
of training, perhaps sometimes because of the lack of 
training. In childhood and youth these original tend- 
encies should, to some extent, be satisfied in legitimate 
ways. Excursions and picnics can be planned both for 
work and for play. If the child's desires and needs can 
be satisfied in legitimate ways, then he will not have to 
satisfy them illegitimately. The teaching itself can be 
done better by following, to some extent, the lead of 
the child's nature. Much early education consists in 
learning the world. Now, most of the world is out of 
doors and the child must go out to find it. The teacher 
should make use of the natural desires of the children 
to wander and explore, as a means of educating them. 
The school work should be of such a nature that much 
outdoor work will need to be done. 



62 The Science of Human Nature 

Collecting. It is in the nature of children to seize 
and, if possible, carry away whatever attracts attention. 
This tendency is the basis of what is called the collect- 
ing instinct. If one will take a walk with a child, one can 
observe the operation of the collecting tendency, partic- 
ularly if the walk is in the fields and woods. The child 
will be observed to take leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, 
nuts, pebbles, and in fact everything that is loose or 
can be gotten loose. They are taken at first aimlessly, 
merely because they attract attention. The original, 
natural response of the child toward that which attracts 
attention is usually to get it, get possession of it and 
take it along. It is easy to see why such tendencies 
were developed in man. In his savage state it was 
highly useful for him to do this. He must always have 
been on the lookout for things which could be used as 
food or as weapons. He had to do this to live. But 
one need not take a child to the woods to observe this 
tendency. One can go to the stores. Till a child is 
trained not to do it, he seizes and takes whatever at- 
tracts attention. 

Just as the wandering tendencies can be used for the 
benefit of the child, so can the collecting tendencies. 
Not only should the children make expeditions to learn 
of the world, but specimens should be collected so that 
they can be used to form a museum at the school which 
will represent the surrounding locality. Geological, 
geographical, botanical, and zoological specimens should 
be collected. The children will learn much while mak- 
ing the collections, and much from the collections after 
they are made. 

" Education could profit greatly by making large 
demands upon the collecting instinct. It seems clear 
that in their childhood is the time when children should 



Inherited Tendencies 63 

be sent forth to the fields and woods, to study what they 
find there and to gather specimens. The children 
can form naturalists' clubs for the purpose of studying 
the natural environment. Such study should em- 
brace rocks, soils, plants, leaves, flowers, fruits, and 
specimens of the wood of the various trees. Birds and 
insects can be studied and collected. The work of such 
a club would have a twofold value. (1) The study and 
collecting acquaint the child with his natural environ- 
ment, and in doing it, afford a sphere for the activity 
of many aspects of his nature. They take him out of 
doors and give an opportunity for exploring every nook 
and corner of the natural environment. The collecting 
can often be done in such a way as to appeal to the 
group instincts. For example, the club could hold 
meetings for exhibiting and studying the specimens, 
and sometimes the actual collecting could be done in 
groups. (2) The specimens collected should be put into 
the school museum, and the aim of this museum should 
be to represent completely the local environment, the 
natural and physical environment, and also the indus- 
trial, civil, and social environment. The museum 
should be completely illustrative of the child's natural, 
physical, and social surroundings. The museum would 
therefore be educative in its making, and when it is 
made, it would have immense value to the community, 
not only to the children but to all the people. In this 
museum, of course, should be found the minerals, rocks, 
soils, insects, — particularly those of economic impor- 
tance, — birds, and also specimens of the wild animals 
of the locality. If proper appeal is made to the natural 
desire of the children, this instinct would soon be made 
of service in producing a very valuable collection. The 
school museum in which these specimens are placed 



64 The Science of Human Nature 

should also include other classes of specimens. There 
should be specimens showing industrial evolution, the 
stages of manufacture of raw material, specimens of 
local historical interest, pictures, documents, books. 
The museum should be made of such a nature that 
parents would go there nearly as often as the children. 
The school should be for the instruction of all the 
people of the community. It should be the experi- 
ment station, the library, the debating club, the art 
gallery for the whole community." ^ 

Imitation. One of the fundamental original traits 
of human nature is the tendency to imitate. Imita- 
tion is not instinctive in the strict meaning of the word. 
Seeing a certain act performed does not, apart from 
training and experience, serve as a stimulus to make 
a child perform a similar act. Hearing a certain 
sound does not serve as a stimulus for the produc- 
tion of the same sound. Nevertheless, there is in the 
human child a tendency or desire to do what it sees 
others doing. 

A few hours spent in observing children ought to con- 
vince any one of the universality and of the strength 
of this tendency. As our experience becomes organ- 
ized, the idea of an act usually serves as the stimulus to 
call it forth. However, this is not because the idea of 
an act, of necessity, always produces the act. It is 
merely a matter of the stimulus and the response 
becoming connected in that way as the result of experience. 
Our meaning is that an act can be touched off or 
prompted by any stimulus. Our nervous organization 
makes this possible. The particular stimulus that calls 
forth a particular response depends upon how we have 
been trained, how we have learned. In most cases our 
1 Pyle's Outlines of Educational Psychology, pp. 84-86. 



Inherited Tendencies 65 

acts are coupled up with the ideas of the acts. We 
learn them that way. 

In early life particularly, the connection between 
stimulus and response is very close. When a child 
gets the idea of an act, he immediately performs the 
act, if he knows how. Now, seeing another perform 
an act brings the act clearly into the child's conscious- 
ness, and he proceeds to perform it. But the act must 
be one which the child already knows how to perform, 
otherwise his performance of it will be faulty and in- 
complete. If he has never performed the particular 
act, seeing another perform the act sets him to trying 
to do it and he may soon learn it. If he successfully 
performs an act when he sees it done by another, the 
act must be one which he already knows how to per- 
form, and for whose performance the idea has already 
served as a stimulus. Now if imitation were instinc- 
tive in the strict sense, one could perform the act for 
the first time merely from seeing another do it, without 
any previous experience or learning. It is doubtful 
whether there are any such inherited connections. It 
is, however, true that human beings are of such a na- 
ture that, particularly in early life, they like to do and 
want to do what they see others doing. This is one of 
the most important aspects of human nature, as we shall 
see. 

Function and Importance of Imitation in Life. Nat- 
ural selection has developed few aspects of human na- 
ture so important for survival as the tendency to imi- 
tate, for this tendency quickly leads to a successful 
adjustment of the child to the world in which he lives. 
Adult men and women are successfully adjusted to 
their environment. Their adjustment might be better, 
but it is good enough to keep them alive for a time. 



66 The Science of Human Nature 

Now, if children do as they see their parents doing, they 
will reach a satisfactory adjustment. We may, there- 
fore, say that the tendency to imitate serves to adjust 
the child to his environment. It is for this reason 
that imitation has been called an adaptive instinct. 
It would perhaps be better to say merely that the 
tendency to imitate is part of the original equipment of 
man. 

Imitation is distinctively a human trait. While it 
occurs in lower animals it is probably not an important 
factor in adjusting them to their environment. But 
in the human race it is one of the chief factors in adjust- 
ment to environment. Imitation is one of the main 
factors in education. Usually the quickest way to 
teach a child to do a thing is to show him how. 

Through imitation we acquire our language, manners, 
and customs. Ideals, beliefs, prejudices, attitudes, 
we take on through imitation. The tendency to 
imitate others coupled with the desire to be thought 
well of by others is one of the most powerful factors 
in producing conformity. They are the whips which 
keep us within the bounds of custom and convention- 
ality. The tendency to imitate is so strong that its 
results are almost as certain as are those of inherited 
tendencies. It is almost as certain that a child 
will be like his parents in speech, manners, customs, 
superstitions, etc., as it is that he will be like them in 
form of body. He not only walks and talks and acts 
like his parents, but he thinks as they do. We, there- 
fore, have the term social heredity, meaning the taking 
on of all sorts of social habits and ideals through 
imitation. 

The part that imitation plays in the education of a 
child may be learned by going to a country home and 



Inherited Tendencies 67 

noting how the boy learns to do all the many things 
about the farm by imitating his father, and how the 
girl learns to do all the housework by imitating her 
mother. Imitation is the basis of much of the play of 
children, in that their play consists in large part of doing 
what they see older people doing. This imitative play 
gives them skill and is a large factor in preparing 
for the work of life. 

Dramatization. Dramatization is an aspect of imi- 
tation, and is a means of making ideas more real than 
they would otherwise be. There is nothing that leads 
us so close to reality as action. We never completely 
know an act till we have done it. Dramatization is a 
matter of carrying an idea out into action. Ideas give 
to action its greatest fullness of meaning. 

Dramatic representation should, therefore, have a 
prominent place in the schools, particularly in the 
lower grades. If the child is allowed to mimic the 
characters in the reading lesson, the meaning of the 
lesson becomes fuller. Later on in the school course, 
dramatic representation of the characters in literature 
and history is a means of getting a better conception 
of these characters. In geography, the study of the 
manners and customs and occupations of foreign peoples 
can be much facilitated through dramatic representa- 
tion. Children naturally have the dramatic tendency ; 
it is one aspect of the tendency to imitate. We have 
only to encourage it and make use of it throughout the 
school course. 

Imitation in Ideals. Imitation is of importance not 
only in acquiring the actions of life but also in getting 
our ideals. Habits of thinking are no less an aspect of 
our lives than are habits of acting. Our attitudes, our 
prejudices, our beliefs, our moral, religious, and political 



68 The Science of Human Nature 

ideals are in large measure copied from people about us. 
The family and social atmosphere in which one lives 
is a mold in which one's mind is formed and shaped. 
We cannot escape the influence of this atmosphere if 
we would. One takes on a belief that his father has, 
one clings to this belief and interprets the world in the 
light of it. This belief becomes a part of one's nature. 
It is a mental habit, a way of looking at the world. 
It is as much a part of one as red hair or big feet or a 
crooked nose. Probably no other influence has so 
much to do with making us what we are as social beings 
as the influence of imitation. 

Play. Play is usually considered to be a part of the 
original equipment of man. It is essentially an expres- 
sion of the ripening instincts of children, and not a 
specific instinct itself. It is rather a sort of make- 
believe activity of all the instincts. Kittens and dogs 
may be seen in play to mimic fighting. They bite and 
chew each other as in real fighting, but still they are not 
fighting. 

As the structures and organs of children mature, 
they demand activity. This early activity is called 
play. It has several characteristics. The main one 
is that it is pleasurable. Play activity is pleasurable 
in itself. We do not play that we may get something 
else which we like, as is the case with the activity which 
we call work. Play is an end in itself. It is not a means 
to get something else which is intrinsically valuable. 

One of the chief values of play comes from its activity 
aspect. We are essentially motor beings. We grow 
and develop only through exercise. In early life we 
do not have to exert ourselves to get a living. Play 
is nature's means of giving our organs the exercise 
which they must have to bring them to maturity. Play 



Inherited Tendencies 69 

is an expression of the universal tendency to action in 
early life. Without play, the child would not develop, 
would not become a normal human being. 

All day long the child is ceaselessly active. The 
value of this activity can hardly be overestimated. It 
not only leads to healthy growth, but is a means through 
which the child learns himself and the world. Every- 
thing that the child sees excites him to react to it or upon 
it. He gets possession of it. He bites it. He pounds it. 
He throws it. In this way he learns the properties of 
things and the characteristics of forces. Through play 
and imitation, in a very few years the child comes to a 
successful adjustment in his world. 

Play and imitation are the great avenues of activity 
in early life. Even in later life, we seldom accomplish 
anything great or worth while until the thing becomes 
play to us, until we throw our whole being into it as we 
do in play, until it is an expression of ourselves as play 
is in our childhood. The proper use of play gives us 
the solution of many of the problems of early education. 

Play has two functions in the school: (1) Motor 
play is necessary to growth, development, and health. 
The constant activity of the child is what brings about 
healthy growth. 

In the country it is not difficult for children to get 
plenty of the proper kind of exercise, but in the larger 
cities it is difficult. Nevertheless, opportunity for play 
should be provided for every child, no matter what the 
trouble or expense, for without play children cannot be- 
come normal human beings. Everywhere parents and 
teachers should plan for the play life of the children. 

(2) In the primary grades play can have a large place 
in the actual work of the school. The early work of 
education is to a large extent getting the tools of 



70 The Science of Human Nature 

knowledge and thought and work — reading, spelHng, 
writing, correct speech, correct writing, the elementary- 
processes of arithmetic, etc. In many ways play can 
be used in acquiring these tools. 

One aspect of play particularly should have a large 
place in education; namely, the manipulative tend- 
encies of children. This is essentially play. Children 
wish to handle and manipulate everything that attracts 
their attention. They wish to tear it to pieces and to 
put it together. This is nature's way of teaching, and 
by it children learn the properties and structures of 
things. They thereby learn what things do and what 
can be done with them. Teachers and parents should 
foster these manipulative tendencies and use them for 
the child's good. These tendencies are an aspect of 
curiosity. We want to know. We are unhappy as 
long as a thing is before us which we do not understand, 
which has some mystery about it. Nature has devel- 
oped these tendencies in us, for without a knowledge of 
our surroundings we could not live. The child therefore 
has in his nature the basis of his education. We have 
but to know this nature and wisely use and manipulate 
it to achieve the child's education. 

Summary. Instincts are inherited tendencies to specific actions. 
They fall under the heads: individualistic, socialistic, environ- 
mental, adaptive, sexual or mating instincts. These inherited 
tendencies are to a large extent the foundation on which we build 
education. The educational problem is to control and guide them, 
suppressing some, fostering others. In everything we undertake 
for a child we must take into account these instincts. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Make a study of the instincts of several animals, such as 
dogs, cats, chickens. Make a list showing the stimuli and the 
inherited responses. 



Inherited Tendencies 71 

2. Make a study of the instincts of a baby. See how many 
inherited responses you can observe. The simpler inherited 
responses are known as reflexes. The closing of the eyelids men- 
tioned in the text is an example. How many such reflexes can 
you find in a child? 

3. Make a special study of the fears of very young children. 
How many definite situations can you find which excite fear 
responses in all children? Each member of the class can make a 
list of his own fears. It may then be seen whether any fears are 
common to all members of the class and whether there are any 
sex differences. 

4. Similarly, make a study of anger and fighting. What 
situations invariably arouse the fighting response? In what 
definite, inherited ways is anger shown? Do your studies and 
observations convince you that the fighting instinct and other 
inherited responses concerned with individual survival are among 
the strongest of inherited tendencies? Can the fighting instinct 
be eliminated from the human race? Is it desirable to elimi- 
nate it ? 

5. Make a study of children's collections. Take one of the 
grades and find what collections the children have made. What 
different objects are collected? 

6. Outline a plan for using the collecting instinct in various 
school studies. 

7. With the help of the principal of the school make a study 
of some specific cases of truancy. What does your finding show? 

8. Make a study of play by watching children of various 
ages play. Make a list of the games that are universal for infancy, 
those for childhood, and those for youth. (Consult Johnson's 
Plays and Games.) 

9. What are the two main functions of play in education? 
Why shoul4 we play after we are mature? 

10. Study imitation in very young children. Do this by 
watching the spontaneous play of children under six. What 
evidences of imitation do you find? 

11. Outline the things we learn by imitation. What is your 
opinion of the place which imitation has in our education? 

12. Make a study of imitation as a factor in the lives of grown 
people. Consider styles, fashions, manners, customs, beliefs, 
prejudices, religious ideas, etc. 

13. On the whole, is imitation a good thing or a bad thing? 



72 The Science of Human Nature 

14. Make a plan of the various ways in which dramatization 
can be profitably used in the schools. 

15. Make a study of your own ideals. What ideals do you 
have? Where did you get them? What ideals did you get from 
your parents? What from books ? What from teachers ? What 
from friends? 

16. Show that throughout life inherited tendencies are the 
fundamental bases from which our actions proceed, on which our 
lives are erected. 

17. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN and Bagley: Human Behavior, Chapters III, VIII, IX, 

andX. 
KiRKPATRiCK : Fundamentals of Child Study, Chapters IV-XIII. 
MiJNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 184-187. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapter X. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapters IV-IX. 
TiTCHENER : A Beginner's Psychology, Chapter VIII. 



CHAPTER V 
FEELING AND ATTENTION 

The Feelings. Related to the instincts on one side 
and to habits on the other are the feelings. In Chap- 
ter III we discussed sensation, and in the preceding 
chapter, the instincts, but when we have described an 
act in terms of instinct and sensation, we have not told 
all the facts. 

For example, when a child sees a pretty red ball of 
yarn, he reaches out to get it, then puts it into his mouth, 
or unwinds it, and plays with it in various ways. It 
is all a matter of sensation and instinctive responses. 
The perception of the ball — seeing the ball — brings 
about the instinctive reaching out, grasping the ball, 
and bringing it to the mouth. But to complete our 
account, we must say that the child is pleased. We 
note a change in his facial expression. His eyes gleam 
with pleasure. His face is all smiles, showing pleasant 
contentment. Therefore we must say that the child 
not only sees, not only acts, but the seeing and acting 
are pleasant. The child continues to look, he continues 
to act, because the looking and acting bring joy. 

This is typical of situations that bring pleasure. 
We want them continued ; we act in a way to make 
them continue. We go out after the pleasure-giving 
thing. 

But let us consider a different kind of situation. A 

73 



74 The Science of Human Nature 

child sees on the hearth a glowing coal. It instinc- 
tively reaches out and grasps it, starts to draw the coal 
toward it, but instinctively drops it. This is not, 
however, the whole story. Instead of the situation 
being pleasant, it is decidedly unpleasant. The child 
fairly howls with pain. His face, instead of being 
wreathed in smiles, is covered with tears. He did not 
hold on to the coal. He did not try to continue the 
situation. On the contrary, he dropped the coal, and 
withdrew the hand. The body contracted and shrank 
away from the situation. 

These two cases illustrate the two simple feelings, 
pleasantness and unpleasantness. Most situations in 
life are either pleasant or unpleasant. Situations may 
sometimes be neutral ; that is, may arouse neither the 
feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness. But usually 
a conscious state is either pleasant or unpleasant. A 
situation brings us life, joy, happiness. We want it 
continued and act in a way to bring about its con- 
tinuance. Or the situation tends to take away our 
life, brings pain, sorrow, grief, and we want it dis- 
continued, and act in a way to discontinue it. 

These two simple forms of feeling perhaps arose in 
the beginning in connection with the act of taking food. 
It is known that if a drop of acid touches an amoeba, 
the animal shrinks, contracts, and tries to withdraw 
fronf^the death-bringing acid. On the other hand, if a 
particle of a substance that is suitable for food touches 
the animal, it takes the particle within itself. The 
particle is life-giving and brings pleasure. 

The Emotions. Pleasure and displeasure are the 
simple feelings. Most situations in life bring about 
very complex feeling states known as emotions. The 
emotions are made up of pleasure or displeasure mixed 



Feeling and Attention 75 

or compounded with the sensations from the bodily 
reactions. 

The circulatory system, the respiratory system, and 
nearly all the involuntary organs of the body form a 
great sounding board which instantly responds in vari- 
ous ways to the situations of life. When the youth 
sees the pretty maiden and when he touches her hand, 
his heart pumps away at a great rate, his cheeks be- 
come flushed, his breathing is paralyzed, his voice trem- 
bles. He experiences the emotion of love. The state 
is complex indeed. There is pleasantness, of course, 
but there is in addition the feeling of all the bodily 
reactions. 

When the mother sees her dead child lying in its cas- 
ket, her head falls over on her breast, her eyes fill with 
tears, her shoulders droop, her chest contracts, she sobs, 
her breathing is spasmodic. Nearly every organ of the 
body is affected in one way or another. The state is 
unpleasant, but there is also the feeling of the manifold 
bodily reactions. 

So it is always. The biologically important situa- 
tions in life bring about, through hereditary connections 
in the nervous system, certain typical reactions. These 
reactions are largely the same for the same type of situ- 
ation, and they give the particular coloring to each emo- 
tion. It is evident that the emotions are closely related 
to the instincts. The reflexes that take place in emo- 
tions are of the same nature as the instincts. Each 
instinctive act has its characteristic emotion. There 
are fear instincts and fear emotions. Fear is unpleas- 
ant. In addition to its unpleasantness there is a mul- 
titude of sensations that come from the body. The 
hair stands on end, the heart throbs, the circulation is 
hastened, breathing is interrupted, the muscles are 



76 The Science of Human Nature 

tense. This peculiar mass of sensations, blended with 
the unpleasantness, gives the characteristic emotion of 
fear. But we need not go into an analysis of the 
various emotions of love, hate, envy, grief, jealousy, 
etc. The reader can do this for himself. ^ 

Nearly every organ of the body plays its part in the 
emotions : the digestive organs, the liver, the kidneys, 
the throat and mouth, the salivary glands, the eyes 
and tear glands, the skin muscles, the facial muscles, 
etc. And every emotion is made up of pleasantness or 
unpleasantness and the sensations produced by some 
combination of bodily reactions. 

It is well for us to remember the part that bodily 
conditions and states play in the emotional life. The 
emotional state of a man depends upon whether he has 
had his dinner or is hungry, whether the liver is work- 
ing normally, and upon the condition of the various 
secreting and excreting organs and glands. In a word, 
it is evident that our emotions fall within a world of 
cause and effect. Our feeling states are caused. 

Importance in Life. Our feelings and emotions are 
the fountains from which nearly all our volitional ac- 
tions flow. Feeling is the mainspring of life. Nearly 
everything we do is prompted by love, or hate, or fear, 
or jealousy, or rivalry, or anger, or grief. If the feelings 
have such close relation to action, then the schools must 
take them into account, for by education we seek to 
control action. If the feelings control action, then we 
must try to control the feelings. We must get the child 
into a right state of mind toward the school, toward his 
teacher, and toward his work. The child must like the 
school, Hke the teacher, and want to learn. 

Moreover, we must create the right state of mind in 
1 See James* Psychology, Briefer Course, Chapter XXIV. 



Feeling and Attention 77 

connection with each study, each task. The child must 
come to feel the need and importance of each individual 
task as well as of each subject. The task is then de- 
sirable, it is to be sought for and worked at, it is impor- 
tant for life. 

This is merely enlisting the child's nature in the in- 
terest of his education. For motive, we must always 
look to the child's nature. The two great forces which 
pull and drive are pleasure and pain. Nature has no 
other methods. Formerly the school used pain as its 
motive almost exclusively. The child did his tasks to 
escape pain. For motive we now use more often the 
positive influences which give pleasure, which pull 
instead of drive. What will one not do for the loved 
one? What will one not do to the hated one? The 
child who does not love his teacher gets little good from 
school while under that teacher. Moreover, school 
work is often a failure because it is so unreal, has so 
little relation to an actual world, and seems foreign to 
any real needs of the child. No one is going to work 
very hard unless the work is prompted by desire. Our 
desires come from our needs. Therefore, if we are to 
enlist the child's feelings in the service of his education, 
we must make the school work vital and relate it, if 
possible, to the actual needs of the child. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that we must 
build up permanent attitudes of respect for authority, 
obedience, and reverence for the important things of 
life. Neither must it be forgotten that we can create 
needs in the child. If in the education of the child we 
follow only such needs as he has, we will make a fine 
savage of him but nothing else. It is the business of 
the school to create in the child the right kind of needs. 
As was pointed out in our study of the instincts, we must 



78 The Science of Human Nature 

make the child over again into what he ought to be. 
But this cannot be a sudden process. One cannot 
arouse enthusiasm in a six-year-old child over the 
beauties of higher mathematics. It takes ten or fifteen 
years to do that, and it must be done little by little. 

Control of the Emotions. Without training, we re- 
main at the mercy of our baser emotions. The child 
must be trained to control himself. Here is where 
habit comes in to modify primitive action. The child 
can be trained to inhibit or prevent the reactions that 
arise in hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, etc. For a fuller 
discussion of this point we must wait till we come to the 
discussion of habit and moral training. 

Mood and Temperament. A mood is a somewhat 
extended emotional state continuing for hours or days. 
It is due to a continuance of the factors which cause it. 
The state of the liver and digestive organs may throw 
one for days into a cross and ugly mood. When the 
body becomes normal, the mood changes or disappears. 
Similarly, one may for hours or days be overjoyed, or 
depressed, or morose, or melancholy. Parents and 
teachers should look well to the matter of creating 
and establishing continuous and permanent states of 
feeling that are favorable to work and development. 

Some people are permanently optimistic, others pessi- 
mistic. Some are always joyful, others as constantly 
see only the dark side of life. Some are always serious 
and solemn, others always gay, even giddy. These 
permanent emotional attitudes constitute temperament, 
and are due to fundamental differences within the body 
that are in some cases hereditary. Crossness and 
moroseness, for example, may be due to a dyspeptic 
condition and a chronically bad liver. The happy 
dispositions belong to bodies whose organs are func- 



Feeling and Attention 79 

tioning properly, in which assimilation is good — all 
the parts of the body doing their proper work. 

Poor eyes which are under a constant strain, through 
the reflex effects upon various organs of the body, are 
likely to develop a permanently cross and irritable dis- 
position. Through the close sympathetic relation of the 
various organs, anything affecting one organ and inter- 
fering with its proper action is likely to affect many 
other organs and profoundly influence the emotional 
states of the body. In growing children particularly, 
there are many influences which affect their emotions, 
things of which we seldom think, such as the condition 
of vision and hearing, the condition of the teeth, nose, 
and throat, and the condition of all the important vital 
organs of the body. When a child's disposition is not 
what we think it ought to be, we should try to find 
out the causes. 

Training the Emotions. The emotions are subject to 
training. The child can be taught control. Moreover, 
he can be taught to appreciate and enjoy higher things 
than mere animal pleasure; namely, art, literature, 
nature, truth. The child thereby becomes a spiritual 
being instead of a mere pig. The ideal of the school 
should be to develop men and women whose baser pas- 
sions are under control, who are calm, self-controlled, 
and self-directed, and who get their greatest pleasure 
from the finer and higher things of life, such as the 
various forms of music, the songs of birds, the beauties 
and intricate workings of nature. 

This is a wonderful world and a wonderful life, but 
the child may go through the world without seeing it, 
and live his life without knowing what it is to live. 
His eyes must be opened, he must be trained to see and 
to feel. It is not the place here to tell how this is to be 



80 The Science of Human Nature 

done. This is not a book on methods of teaching. 
We can only indicate here that the business of the school 
is not merely to teach people how to make a living, but 
to teach them how to enjoy the living. There are 
many avenues from which we get the higher forms of 
pleasure. There are really many different worlds which 
we may experience : the world of animals, the world of 
plants, the mechanical world, the chemical world, the 
world of literature and of art, the world of music. It 
is the duty of the schools to open up these worlds to 
the children, and make them so many possibilities of joy 
and happiness. 

The emotions and feelings, then, are not lawless and 
causeless, but are a part of a world of law and order. 
They are themselves caused and therefore subject to 
control and modification. 

Attention. Attention, too, is related to inherited 
tendencies on the one side and to habits on the other. 
If one is walking in the woods and catches a glimpse of 
something moving in the trees, the eyes instinctively 
turn so that the person can get a better view of the 
object. If one hears a sudden sound, the head is in- 
stinctively turned so that the person can hear better. 
One stops, the body is held still and rigid, breathing is 
slow and controlled — all to favor better hearing. 

The various acts of attention are reflex and instinc- 
tive. But what is attention? By attention we mean 
sensory clearness. When we say we are attentive to a 
thing or subject, we mean that perceptions or ideas of 
that thing or subject are clear as compared to other per- 
ceptions and ideas that are in consciousness at the same 
time. The contents of one's consciousness, the percep- 
tions and ideas that constitute one's mind at any one 
moment are always arranged in an attentive pattern, 



Feeling and Attention 81 

some being clear, others unclear. The pattern con- 
stantly changes and shifts. What is now clear and in 
the focus of consciousness, presently is unclear and may 
in a moment disappear from consciousness altogether, 
while other perceptions or ideas take its place. 

The first question that arises in connection with at- 
tention is. What are the causes of attention ? The first 
group of causes are hereditary and instinctive. The 
child attends to loud things, bright things, moving 
things, etc. But as we grow older, the basis of atten- 
tion becomes more and more habit. An illustration will 
make this clear. I once spent a day at a great exposi- 
tion with a machinist. He was constantly attending to 
things mechanical, when I would not even see them. 
He had spent many years working with machinery, 
and as a result, things mechanical at once attracted 
him. Similarly, if a man and a woman walk along a 
street together and look in at the shop windows, the 
woman sees only hats, dresses, ribbons, and other finery, 
while the man sees only cigars, pipes, and automobile 
supplies. Every day we live, we are building up habits 
of attending to certain types of things. What repeat- 
edly comes into our experience, easily attracts our at- 
tention to the exclusion of other things. 

The Function of Attention. Attention is the unifying 
aspect of consciousness. There are always many things 
in consciousness, and we cannot respond to all at once. 
The part of consciousness that is clear and focal brings 
about action. The things to which we attend are the 
things that count. 

In later chapters we shall learn that in habit-forma- 
tion, attention is an important factor. We must at- 
tend to the acts we are trying to make habitual. In get- 
ting knowledge, we must attend to what we are trying 



82 The Science of Human Nature 

to learn. In committing to memory, we must attend 
to the ideas that we are trying to fix and make per- 
manent. In thinking and reasoning, those ideas be- 
come associated together that are together in attention. 

Attention is therefore the controlling aspect of con- 
sciousness. It is the basis of what we call will. The 
ideas that are clear and focal and that persist in con- 
sciousness are the ideas that control our action. When 
one says he has made up his mind, he has made a choice ; 
that merely means that a certain group of ideas persist 
in consciousness to the exclusion of others. These 
are the ideas which ultimately produce action. And it 
is our past experience that determines what ideas will 
become focal and persist. 

Training the Attention. There are two aspects of 
the training of attention. (1) We can learn to hold 
ourselves to a task. When we sit down to a table to 
study, there may be many things that tend to call us 
away. There lies a magazine which we might read, 
there is a play at the theater, there are noises outside, 
there is a friend calling across the street. But we must 
study. We have set ourselves to a task and we must 
hold fast to our purpose. 

The young child cannot do this. He must be trained 
to do it. The instruments used to train him are pleas- 
ure and pain, rewards and punishments that come 
from parents. Gradually, slowly, the child gains con- 
trol over himself. No one ever amounts to anything 
till he can hold himself to a task, to a fixed purpose. 
One must learn to form plans extending over weeks, 
months, and years, and to hold unflinchingly to them, 
just as one must hold himself to his study table and 
allow nothing to distract or to interfere. No training 
a child can receive is more important than this, for it 



Feeling and Attention 83 

gives him control over his Hfe, it gives him control 
over the ideas that are to become focal and determine 
action. It is for this reason that we call such training 
a training of attention. It might perhaps better be 
called a training of the will. But the will is only the 
attentive consciousness. The idea that is clear, that 
holds its own in consciousness, is the idea that produces 
action. When we say that we will to do a certain thing, 
all we can mean is that the idea of this act is clearest 
and holds its focal place in consciousness to the exclu- 
sion of other ideas. It therefore goes over into action. 

(2) The training just discussed may be called a 
general training of attention giving us a general power 
and control over our lives, but there is another type 
of training which is specific. As with the machinist 
mentioned above, so with all of us; we attend to 
the type of thing that we have formed a habit 
of attending to. Continued experience in a certain 
field makes it more and more easy to attend to things 
in that field. One can take a certain subject and work 
at it day after day, year after year. By and by, the 
whole world takes on the aspect of this chosen subject. 
The entomologist sees bugs everywhere, the botanist 
sees only plants, the mechanic sees only machines, the 
preacher sees only the moral and religious aspects of 
action, the doctor sees only disease, the mathematician 
sees always the quantitative aspect of things. Ideas 
and perceptions related to one's chosen work go at once 
and readily to the focus of consciousness ; other things 
escape notice. 

It is for this reason that we become " crankier " 
every year that we live. We are attending to only one 
aspect of the world. While this blinds us to other 
aspects of the world, it brings mastery in our individual 



84 The Science of Human Nature 

fields. We can, then, by training and practice, get a 
general control over attention, and by working in a 
certain field or kind of work, we make it easy to attend 
to things in that field or work. This to an extent 
gives us control of our lives, of our destiny. 

Interest. The essential elements of interest are 
attention and feeling. When a person is very attentive 
to a subject and gets pleasure from experience in that 
subject, we commonly say that he is interested in that 
subject. 

Since the importance of attention and feeling in learn- 
ing has already been shown and will be further devel- 
oped in the chapters which follow in connection with the 
subjects of habit, memory, and thinking, little more 
need be said here. 

The key to all forms of learning is attention. The 
key to attention is feeling. Feeling depends upon the 
nature of the child, inherited and acquired. In our 
search for the means of arousing interest, we look first 
to the original nature of the child, to the instincts and 
the emotions. We look next to the acquired nature, 
the habits, the ideals, the various needs that have grown 
up in the individual's life. Educational writers have 
overemphasized the original nature of the child as a 
basis of interest and have not paid enough attention to 
acquired nature. We should not ask so much what a 
child's needs are, but what they ought to be. Needs can 
be created. The child's nature to some extent can be 
changed. The problem of arousing interest is there- 
fore one of finding in the child's nature a basis for at- 
tention and pleasure. If the basis is not to be found 
there, then it must be built up. How this can be done, 
how human nature can be changed, is to some extent 
the main problem of psychology. Every chapter in 



Feeling and Attention 85 

this book, it is hoped, will be found to throw some light 
on the problem. 

Summary. The two elementary feeling states are pleasantness 
and unpleasantness. The emotions are complex mental states 
composed of feeling and the sensations from bodily reactions to 
the situations. Feeling and emotion are the motive forces of 
life, at the bottom of all important actions. The bodily reactions 
of emotions are reflex and instinctive. Attention is a matter of 
the relative clearness of the contents of consciousness. The func- 
tion of attention is to unify thought and action. It is the im- 
portant factor in all learning and thinking, for it is only the atten- 
tive part of consciousness that is effective. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Make out a complete list of the more important emotions. 

2. Indicate the characteristic expression of each emotion in 
your list. 

3. Can you have an emotion without its characteristic ex- 
pression ? If, for example, when a situation arises which ordinarily 
arouses anger in you, you inhibit all the usual motor accompani- 
ments of anger, are you really angry? 

4. Are the expressions of the same emotion the same for all 
people ? 

5. Try to analyze some of your emotional states : anger, or 
fear, or grief. Can you detect the sensations that come from the 
bodily reactions? 

6. Try to induce an emotional state by producing its char- 
acteristic reactions. 

7. Try to change an emotional state to an opposite emotion ; 
for example, grief to joy. 

8. Try to control and change emotional states in children. 

9. Name some sensations that for you are always pleasant, 
others that are always unpleasant — colors, sounds, tastes, odors, 
temperatures. 

10. Confirm by observation the statement of the text as to 
the importance of emotions in all the important actions of life. 

11. To what extent do you have control of your emotional 
states? What have you observed about differences in expression 
of deep emotions by different people? In case of death in the 



86 The Science of Human Nature 

family, some people wail and moan and express their grief in the 
most extreme manner, while others do not utter a sound and show 
great control. Why the difference? 

12. Make an introspective study of your conscious states to 
note the difference in clearness of the different processes that are 
going on in consciousness. Do you find a constant shifting? 

13. Perform experiments to show the effects of attention in 
forming habits and acquiring knowledge. 

(1) Perform tests in learning, using substitution tests as 
described in Chapter X. Use several different keys. In some 
experiments have no distractions, in others, have various distract- 
ing noises. What differences do you find in the results? 

(2) Try learning nonsense syllables, some lists with distractions, 
others without distractions. 

(3) Try getting the ideas from stories read to you, as in the 
logical memory experiment described in Chapter X. Some stories 
should be read without distractions, others with distractions. 

14. Why are you unable to study well when under the influence 
of some strong emotion? 

15. Are you trained to the extent that you can concentrate on 
a task and hold yourself to it for a long time? 

16. Do you see that as far as will and attention and the emo- 
tions are concerned, your life and character are in large measure 
in your own hands? 

17. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

CoLViN and Bagley : Human Behavior, Chapters IV, V, and VI. 
MuNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, Chapter XIV, 

also pp. 187-192 and pp. 370-371. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapters V and XI. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapter XIV. 
TiTCHENER : A Beginner's Psychology, Chapters IV, VIII, and XI. 



CHAPTER VI 
HABIT 

The Nature of Habit. We now turn from man's in- 
herited nature to his acquired nature. Inherited tend- 
encies to action we have called instincts; acquired 
tendencies to action we shall call habits. We can best 
form an idea of the nature of habit by considering 
some concrete cases. 

Let us take first the case of a man forming the habit 
of turning out the basement light. It usually happens 
that when a man has an electric light in the basement 
of his house, it is hard for him at first to think to turn 
out the light at night when he retires, and as a conse- 
quence the light often burns all night. This is expen- 
sive and unnecessary, so there is a strong incentive for 
the man to find a plan which will insure the regular 
turning-off of the light at bedtime. The plan usually 
hit upon is the following: The electric switch that 
controls the basement light is beside the basement 
stairway. The man learns to look at the switch as he 
comes up the stairs, after preparing the furnace fire 
for the night, and learns to take hold of the switch when 
he sees it and turn off the light. Coming up the stairs 
means to look at the switch. Seeing the switch means 
to turn it. Each step of the performance touches off 
the next. The man sees that in order to make sure 
that the light will always be turned off, the acts must all 

87 



88 The Science of Human Nature 

be made automatic, and each step must touch off the 
next in the series. At first, the man leaves the light 
burning about as often as he turns it off. After prac- 
ticing for a time on the scheme, the different acts be- 
come so well connected that he seldom leaves the light 
burning. We say that he has formed the hahit of turn- 
ing off the light. 

For a second illustration, let us take the process of 
learning that nine times nine equals eighty-one. At 
first, one does not say or write ** eighty-one " when one 
sees " nine times nine," but one can acquire the habit 
of doing so. It does not here concern us how the 
child learns what the product of nine times nine is. He 
may learn it by counting, by being told, or by reading it 
in a book. But however he first learns it, he fixes it 
and makes it automatic and habitual by continuing to 
say or to write, " nine times nine equals eighty- 
one." The essential point is that at first the child does 
not know what to say when he hears or sees the expres- 
sion " nine times nine," but after long practice he comes 
to give automatically and promptly the correct answer. 
For the definite problem " nine times nine " there 
comes the definite response " eighty-one." 

For a third illustration, let us take the case of a man 
tipping his hat when he meets a lady. A young boy 
does not tip his hat when he meets a lady until he has 
been taught to do so. After he learns this act of cour- 
tesy he does it quite automatically without thinking of 
it. For the definite situation, meeting a lady of his 
acquaintance, there comes to be established the definite 
response, tipping the hat. A similar habit is that of 
turning to the right when we meet a person. For the 
definite situation, meeting a person on the road or 
street or sidewalk, there is established the definite re- 



Habit 89 



sponse, turning to the right. The response becomes 
automatic, immediate, certain. 

There is another type of habit that may properly be 
called an intellectual habit, such as voting a certain 
party ticket, say the Democratic. When one is a boy, 
one hears his father speak favorably of the Democratic 
party. His father says, " Hurrah for Bryan," so he 
comes to say, " Hurrah for Bryan." His father says, 
" I am a Democrat," so he says he is a Democrat. He 
takes the side that his father takes. In a similar 
way we take on the same religious notions that our 
parents have. It does not always happen this way, but 
this is the rule. But no matter how we come to do it, 
we do adopt the creed of some party or some church. 
We adopt a certain way of looking at public questions, 
and a certain way of looking at religious questions. 
For certain rather definite situations, we come to take 
definite stands. When we go to the booth to vote, we 
look at the top of the ballot to find the column marked 
" Democratic," and the definite response is to check 
the " Democrat " column. Of course, some of us form 
a different habit and check the " Republican " column, 
but the psychology of the act is the same. The point 
is that we form the Democratic habit or we form the 
Republican habit; and the longer we practice the 
habit, the harder it is to change it. 

In the presidential campaign of 1912, Roosevelt 
" bolted " from the Republican party. It was hard 
for the older Republicans to follow him. While one 
occasionally found a follower of Roosevelt who was gray, 
one usually found the old Republicans standing by the 
old party, the younger ones joining the Progressive 
party. It is said that when Darwin published " The 
Origin of Species," very few old men accepted the doc- 



90 The Science of Human Nature 

trine of evolution. The adherents of the new doctrine 
were nearly all young men. So there is such a thing as 
an intellectual habit. One comes to take a definite 
stand when facing certain definite intellectual situations. 

Similar to the tjrpe of habits which we have called 
intellectual is another type which may be called 
" moral." When we face the situation of reporting an 
occurrence, we can tell the truth or we can lie. We 
can build up the habit of meeting such situations by 
telling the truth on all occasions. We can learn to fol- 
low the maxim "Tell the truth at all times, at all 
hazards." We can come to do this automatically, cer- 
tainly, and without thought of doing anything else. 

Most moral situations are fairly definite and clear- 
cut, and for them we can establish definite forms of 
response. We can form the habit of helping a person' 
in distress, of helping a sick neighbor, of speaking well 
of a neighbor ; we can form habits of industry, habits 
of perseverance. These and other similar habits are 
the basis of morality. 

The various kinds of habits which we have enumer- 
ated are alike in certain fundamental particulars. In 
all of them there is a definite situation followed by a 
definite response. One sees the switch and turns off 
the light ; he sees the expression " nine times nine " 
and says " eighty-one " ; he sees a lady he knows and 
tips his hat ; in meeting a carriage on the road, he turns 
to the right ; when he has to vote, he votes a certain 
ticket; when he has to report an occurrence, he tells 
it as it happened. There is, in every case, a definite 
situation followed by a definite response. 

Another characteristic is common to all the cases 
mentioned above,- i.e. the response is acquired, it 
does not come at first. In every instance we might 



Habit 91 



have learned to act differently. We could form the 
habit of always leaving the light burning ; could just as 
easily say " nine times nine equals forty " ; we could 
turn to the left ; we could vote the Republican ticket. 
We can form bad moral habits as well as good ones, 
perhaps more easily. The point is, however, that we 
acquire definite ways of acting for the same situations, 
and these definite ways of acting are called habits. 

Habit and Nerve-Path. It has already been stated 
that a habit is a tendency toward a certain type 
of action in a certain situation. The basis of this tend- 
ency is in the nervous system. In order to understand 
it we must consider what the nervous system is like. 
Nerves terminate at one end in a sense organ and at the 
other end ultimately in a muscle. 

In Figure II, A is a sense organ, B a nerve going 
from the sense organ to the brain C. D, E, F, G, and H 
are motor nerves going from the brain to the muscles. 
Now, let us show from the diagram what organization 
means and what tendency means. At first when the 
child sees the expression " nine times nine,'' he does 
not say '' eighty-one." The stimulus brings about 
no definite action. It is as likely to go out through E 
or F as through D. But suppose we can get the child 
to say " nine times nine equals eighty-one." We can 
write the expression on the blackboard and have the 
child look at it and say " nine times nine equals eighty- 
one." Suppose the act of saying " eighty-one " is 
brought about by the nerve-current going out through 
nerve-chain D. By repetition, we establish a bond. 
A stimulus of a particular kind comes through A, goes 
over B to C, and out over D, making muscles at M bring 
about a very definite action in saying " eighty-one." 

From the point of view of physiology, the process of 



92 



The Science of Human Nature 



habit-formation consists in securing a particular nerve 
coupling, establishing a particular nerve path, so 
that a definite form of stimulation will bring about a 
definite ;form of response. A nerve tendency is 
simply the likelihood that a stimulus will take a cer- 
tain course rather than any other. This likelihood is 




Figure II. — The Organization of Tendencies 



brought about by getting the stimulus to take the 
desired route through the nervous system to a group 
of muscles and to continue following this route. The 
more times it passes the same way, the greater is the 
probability that at any given time the stimulus will 
take the accustomed route and bring about the usual 
response. At first any sort of action is possible. A 
nerve stimulus can take any one of the many routes 
to the different muscles. By chance or by conscious 



Habit 93 

direction, the stimulus takes a certain path, and by 
repetition we fix and make permanent this particular 
route. This constitutes a nerve tendency or habit. 

Plasticity. Our discussion should have made it clear 
that habit is acquired nature, while instinct is in- 
herited nature. Habit is acquired tendency while 
instinct is inherited tendency. The possibility of 
acquiring habits is peculiarly a human characteristic. 
While inanimate things have a definite nature, a definite 
way of reacting to forces which act upon them, they 
have little, if any, possibility of varying their way of 
acting. Water might be said to have habits. If one 
cools water, it turns to ice. If we heat it, it turns to 
steam. But it invariably does this. We cannot teach 
it any different way of acting. Under the same condi- 
tions it always does the same thing. 

Plants are very much like inanimate things. Plants 
have definite ways of acting. A vine turns around a 
support. A leaf turns its upper surface to the light. 
But one cannot teach plants different ways of acting. 
The lower forms of animals are somewhat like plants 
and inanimate objects. But to a very slight extent 
they are variable and can form habits. Among the 
higher animals, such as dogs and other domestic ani- 
mals, there is a greater possibility of forming habits. 
In man there are the greatest possibilities of habit- 
formation. In man the learned acts or habits are 
many as compared to the unlearned acts or instincts ; 
while among the lower animals the opposite is the case — 
their instincts are many as compared to their habits. 

We may call this possibility of forming habits plas- 
ticity. Inanimate objects such as iron, rocks, sulphur, 
oxygen, etc., have no plasticity. Plants have very 
little possibility of forming habits. Lower animals 



94 The Science of Human Nature 

have somewhat more, and higher animals still more, 
while man has the greatest possibility of forming habits. 
This great possibility of forming habits is one of the 
main characteristics of man. Let us illustrate the 
contrast between man and inanimate objects by an 
example. If sulphur is put into a test tube and 
heated, it at first melts and becomes quite thin like 
water. If it is heated still more, it becomes thick and 
will not run out of the tube. It also becomes dark. 
Sulphur always does this when so treated. It cannot 
be taught to act differently. Now the action of sul- 
phur when heated is like the action of a man when he 
turns to the right upon meeting a person in the street. 
But the man has to acquire this habit, while the sulphur 
does not have to learn its way of acting. Sulphur al- 
ways acted in this way, while man did not perform 
his act at first, but had to learn it by slow repetition. 

Everything in the world has its own peculiar nature, 
but man is unique in that his nature can be very much 
changed. To a large extent, a man is made, his nature 
is acquired. After we become men and women, we 
have hundreds and thousands of tendencies to action, 
definite forms of action, that we did not have when 
young. Man's nature might be said to consist in his 
tendencies to action. Some of these tendencies he 
inherits; these are his instincts. Some of these he 
acquires ; these are his habits. 

What Habits Do for Us. We have found out what 
habits are like; let us now see what they do for us. 
What good do they accomplish for us? How are we 
different after forming a habit from what we were 
before? We can best answer these questions by a 
consideration of concrete cases. Typewriting will 
serve very well the purpose of illustration. We shall 



Habit 



95 



give the result of an actual experiment in which ten 
university students took part. During their first half 



600 



600 



400 




300 



200 



1 10 20 30 

Figure III. — Learning Curves 
The upper graph shows the improvement in speed of a group of 
students working two half hours a day. The lower curve shows 
the improvement of a group working ten half-hours a day. 

hour of practice, they wrote an average of 120 words. 
At the end of forty-five hours of practice, they were 



96 The Science of Human Nature 

writing an average of 680 words in a half hour. This 
was an increase of speed of 560 per cent. An expert 
typist can write about 3000 words in a half hour. 
Such a speed requires much more than forty-five hours 
practice, and is attained by the best operators only. 

In the foregoing experiment, the students improved 
in accuracy also. At the beginning of the work, they 
made 115 errors in the half hour. At the end of the 
practice, with much faster speed, they were making 
only 327 errors in a half hour. The actual number of 
errors had increased 280 per cent. The increase in 
errors was therefore exactly half as much as the increase 
in speed. This, of course, was a considerable increase 
in accuracy, for while the speed had increased to 5.6 
times what it had been at the beginning, the errors 
had increased only 2.8 times. The subjects in this 
experiment paid much more attention to speed than 
they did to accuracy. If they had emphasized accu- 
racy, they would have been doing almost perfect work 
at the end of the practice, and their speed would have 
been somewhat less. Practice, then, not only develops 
speed but also develops accuracy. 

There are also other results. At the beginning of 
work with the typewriter, there is much waste of energy 
and much fatigue. The waste of energy comes from 
using unnecessary muscles, and the fatigue is partly 
due to this waste of energy. But even apart from this 
waste of energy, an habituated act is performed with 
less fatigue. The various muscles concerned become 
better able to do their work. As a result of habitua- 
tion there is, then, greater speed, greater accuracy, less 
waste of energy, and less fatigue. 

If we look not at the changes in our work but at 
the changes in ourselves, the changes in our minds due 



Habit 97 



to the formation of habits, we find still other results. 
At the beginning of practice with the typewriter, the 
learner's whole attention is occupied with the work. 
When one is learning to do a new trick, the attention 
cannot be divided. The whole mind must be devoted 
to the work. But after one has practiced for several 
weeks, one can operate the typewriter while thinking 
about something else. We say that the habituated act 
sinks to a lower level of consciousness, meaning that 
as a habit becomes more and more fixed, less and less 
attention is devoted to the acts concerned. 

Increased skill gives us pleasure and also gives us 
confidence in our ability to do the thing. Correspond- 
ing to this inner confidence is outer certainty. There 
is greater objective certainty in our performance and 
a corresponding inner confidence. By objective cer- 
tainty, we mean that a person watching our perform- 
ance, becomes more and more sure of our ability to 
perform, and we ourselves feel confidence in our power 
of achievement. 

Now that we have shown the results of habituation 
let us consider additional illustrations. In piano play- 
ing, the stimuli are the notes as written in the music. 
We see the notes occupying certain places on the scale 
of the music. A note in a certain place means that we 
must strike a certain key. At first the response is 
slow, we have to hunt out each note on the keyboard. 
Moreover, we make many mistakes; we strike the 
wrong keys just as we do in typewriting. We are 
awkward, making many unnecessary movements, and 
the work is tiresome and fatiguing. After long prac- 
tice, the speed with which we can manipulate the keys 
in playing the piano is wonderful. Our playing be- 
comes accurate, perfect. We do it with ease, with no 



98 The Science of Human Nature 

unnecessary movements. We can play the piano, 
after we become skilled, without paying attention to 
the actual movements of our hands. We can play 
the piano while concentrating upon the meaning of 
the music, or while carrying on a conversation, or while 
thinking about something else. As a rule, pleasure 
and confidence come with skill. Playing a difficult 
piece on the piano involves a skill which is one of the 
most complicated that man achieves. It is possible only 
through habituation of the piano-playing movements. 

Nailing shingles on a roof illustrates well the various 
aspects of habituation. The expert carpenter not 
only nails on many more shingles in a day than does 
the amateur, but he does it better and with more ease, 
and with much less fatigue. The carpenter knows 
exactly how much he can do in a day, and each par- 
ticular movement is certain and sure. The carpenter 
has confidence in, and usually prides himself on, this 
ability, thus getting pleasure out of his work. 

The operations in arithmetic illustrate most of the 
results of habituation. Practice in addition makes for 
speed and accuracy. In a few weeks' time we can very 
much increase our speed and accuracy in adding, or in 
the other arithmetical operations. 

The foregoing examples are sufficient, although they 
could be multiplied indefinitely. Almost any habit 
one might name would show clearly most of the results 
enumerated. The most important aspects of habitua- 
tion may be summed up in the one word efficiency. 
Habituation gives us speed and accuracy. Speed and 
accuracy mean skill. Skill means efficiency. 

How Habits Are Formed. It is clear from the fore- 
going discussion that the essential thing in a habit is 
the definiteness of the connection between the stimulus 



Habit 99 



and the response, between the situation and the re- 
action to the situation. Our question now is, how is 
this definiteness of connection established? The an- 
swer is, through repetition. Let us work the matter 
out from a concrete case, such as learning to play the 
piano. In piano playing the stimulus comes from 
the music as printed on the staff. A note having 
a certain position on the staff indicates that a cer- 
tain key is to be struck. We are told by our music 
teacher what keys on the piano correspond to the 
various notes on the staff, or we may learn these 
facts from the instruction book. It makes no differ- 
ence how we learn them; but after we know these 
facts, we must have practice to give us skill. The 
mere knowledge will not make us piano players. In 
order to be skillful, we must have much practice not 
only in striking the keys indicated by the various note 
positions, but with the various combinations of notes. 
For example, a note on the second space indicates that 
the player must strike the key known as "A." But 
" A " may occur with any of the other notes, it may 
precede them or it may follow them. We must there- 
fore have practice in striking " A " in all these situa- 
tions. To have skill at the piano, we must mechanize 
many performances. We must be able to read the 
notes with accuracy and ease. We must practice so 
much that the instant we see a certain combination of 
notes on the staff, our hands immediately execute the 
proper strokes. Not only must we learn what keys on 
the piano correspond to the various notes of the music, 
but the notes have a temporal value which we must 
learn. Some are to be sounded for a short time, others 
for a longer time. We have eighth notes, quarter notes, 
half notes, etc. Moreover, the signature of the music 



100 The Science of Human Nature 

as indicated by the sharps or flats changes the whole 
situation. If the music is written in " A sharp " then 
when " A " is indicated on the staff, we must not strike 
the white key known as " A," but the black key just 
above, known as " A sharp." 

Briefly, in piano playing, the stimulus comes from 
the characters printed on the staff. The movements 
which these characters direct are very complicated and 
require months and years of practice. We must em- 
phasize the fact that practice alone gives facility, 
years of practice. But after these years of practice, 
one can play a piece of music at sight ; that is, the first 
stimulus sets off perfectly a very complicated response. 
This sort of performance is one of the highest feats of 
skill that man accomplishes. 

To get skill, then, one must practice. But mere 
repetition is not sufficient. For practice to be most 
effective, one must put his whole mind on what he is 
doing. If he divides his attention between the acts 
which he is practicing and something else, the effect 
of the practice in fixing and perfecting the habit is 
slight. It seems that when we are building up a new 
nerve-path which is to be the basis of a new habit, the 
nervous energies should not be divided ; that the whole 
available nervous energy should be devoted to the acts 
which we are repeating. This is only another way of 
saying that when we are practicing to establish a habit, 
we should attend to what we are doing and to nothing 
else. But after the habit-connection is once firmly 
established, we can attend to other things while per- 
forming the habitual act. The habitual action will go 
on of itself. We may say, then, that in order to be 
able to do a thing with little or no attention, we must 
give much attention to it at first. 



Habit 101 



Another important factor in habit-formation is 
pleasure. The act which we are practicing must give 
us pleasure, either while we are doing it or as a result. 
Pleasurable results hasten habit-formation. When we 
practice an act in which we have no interest, we make 
slow progress or none at all. Now the elements of 
interest are attention and pleasure. If we voluntarily 
attend to a thing and its performance gives us pleasure, 
or pleasure results from it, we say we are interested in 
it. The secret of successful practice is interest. Re- 
peatedly in laboratory experiments it happens that a 
student loses interest in the performance and subse- 
quently makes little, if any, progress. One of the 
biggest problems connected with habit-formation is 
that of maintaining interest. 

A factor which prevents the formation of habits is 
that of exceptions. If a stimulus, instead of going 
over to the appropriate response, produces some other 
action, there is an interference in the formation of the 
desired habit. The effect of an exception is greater 
than the mere neglect of practice. The exception opens 
up another path and tends to make future action uncer- 
tain. Particularly is this true in the case of moral 
habits. Forming moral habits is usually uphill work 
anyway, in that we have instincts to overcome. Allow- 
ing exceptions to enter, in the moral sphere, usually 
means a slipping back into an old way of acting, thereby 
weakening much the newly-made connection. 

In any kind of practice, when we become fatigued 
we make errors. If we continue to practice when 
fatigued, we form connections which we do not wish 
to make and which interfere with the desired habits. 

Economy of Practice. The principles which we have 
enumerated and illustrated are fairly general and of 



102 The Science of Human Nature 

universal validity. There are certain other factors 
which we may discuss here under the head of economical 
procedure. To form a habit, we must practice. But 
how long should we practice at one time? This is an 
experimental problem and has been definitely solved. 
It has been proved by experiment that we can practice 
profitably for as long a time as we can maintain a high 
degree of attention, which is usually till we become 
fatigued. This time is not the same for all people. It 
varies with age, and in the case of the same person it 
varies at different times. If ordinary college students 
work at habit-formation at the highest point of con- 
centration, they get the best return for a period of 
about a half hour. It depends somewhat on the amount 
of concentration required for the work and the stage of 
fixation of the habit, i.e. whether one has just begun 
to form the habit or whether it is pretty well fixed. 
For children, the period of successful practice is usually 
much less than a half hour — five, ten, fifteen, twenty 
minutes, depending upon the age of the child and the 
kind of work. 

The best interval between periods of practice is the 
day, twenty-four hours. If one practices in the morn- 
ing for a half hour, one can practice again in the after- 
noon with nearly as much return as he would secure 
the next day, but not quite. In general, practice is 
better, gives more return, if spread out. To practice 
one day as long as one can work at a high point of 
efficiency, and then to postpone further practice till 
the next day, gives one the most return for the time 
put in. But if one is in a hurry to form a habit, one 
can afford to practice more each day even if the returns 
from the practice do diminish proportionately. 

This matter has been tried out on the typewriter. 



Habit 103 



If one practices for ten half hours a day with half- 
hour rests between, one does not get so much return 
for his time as he would if he should spread it out at 
the rate of one or two half-hour practices a day. But 
by working ten half hours a day, one gets much more 
efficiency in the same number of days than if he should 
practice only one or two half hours a day. This point 
must not be misunderstood. We do not mean that 
one must not work at anything longer than a half hour 
a day. We mean that if one is forming a habit, his 
time counts for more in forming the habit if spread 
out at the rate of a half hour or an hour a day, than it 
does if put in at a faster rate. Therefore if one is in 
no hurry and can afford to spread out his time, he gets 
the best return by so doing, and the habit is more 
firmly fixed than if formed hurriedly. But if one is in 
a hurry, and has the time to devote to it, he can afford 
to concentrate his practice up to five hours or possibly 
more in a day, provided that rest intervals are inter- 
spersed between periods of practice. 

There is one time in habit-formation when concen- 
trated practice is most efficient. That is at the begin- 
ning. In a process as complicated as typewriting, so 
little impression is made at the beginning by a short 
period of practice that progress is but slight. On the 
first day, one should practice about four or five times 
to secure the best returns, a half hour each time. 

What the Teacher Can Do. Now, let us see how 
the teacher can be of assistance to the pupil in habit- 
formation. The teacher should have a clear idea of 
the nature of the habit to be formed and should demon- 
strate the habit to the pupil. Suppose the habit is so 
simple a thing as long division. The teacher should 
explain each step in the process. She should go to the 



104 The Science of Human Nature 

blackboard and actually solve a number of problems in 
long division, so that the pupils can see just how to do it. 
After this the pupils should go to the board and solve 
a problem themselves. The reason for this procedure 
is that it is most economical. If the children are left 
to get the method of doing long division from a book, 
they will not be able to do it readily and will make 
mistakes. A teacher can explain a process better than 
it can be explained in a book. By giving a full expla- 
nation and demonstration and then by requiring the 
children to work a few problems while she watches for 
mistakes, correcting them at once, the teacher secures 
economy of effort and time. The first step is to dem- 
onstrate the habit to the pupils ; the second, to have 
them do the act, whatever it is, correcting their mis- 
takes ; the third, to require the pupils to practice till 
they have acquired skill. The teacher must make pro- 
vision for practice. 

What Parents Can Do. Parents can be of very 
great assistance to children who are forming habits. 

(1) They can cooperate with the school, which is 
directing the child in the systematic formation of a 
great system of habits. The teacher should explain 
these habits to the parents so that they may know 
what the teacher is trying to do. Quite often the 
home and the school are working at cross purposes. 
The only way to prevent this is for them to work in 
the closest cooperation, with the fullest understanding 
of what is being undertaken for the child. Parents 
and teachers should often meet together and talk over 
the work of training the children of the community. 
Parents should have not merely a general understand- 
ing of the work of the school, but they should know the 
details undertaken. The school often assigns practice 



Habit 105 



work to be done at home in reading, writing, arith- 
metic. Parents should always know of these assign- 
ments and should help the children get the necessary 
practice. They can do this by reminding the child of 
the work, by preparing a suitable place where the work 
may be done, and by securing quiet for the practice. 
Children like play and it is easy for them to forget their 
necessary work. Parents can be of the greatest service 
to childhood and youth by holding the children to 
their responsibilities and duties. 

Few parents take any thought of whether their chil- 
dren are doing all possible for their school progress. 
Few of those who do, make definite plans and arrange- 
ments for the children to accomplish the necessary 
practice and study. This is the parent's duty and re- 
sponsibility. Moreover, parents are likely to feel that 
children have no rights, and think nothing of calling on 
them in the midst of their work to do some errand. 
Now, children should work about the house and help 
their parents, but there should be a time for this and a 
separate time for study and practice on school work. 

When a child sits down for serious practice on some 
work, his time should be sacred and inviolable. In- 
stead of interfering with the child, the parents should 
do everything in their power to make this practice 
possible and efficient. In their relations with their 
children perhaps parents sin more in the matter of 
neglecting to plan for them than in any other way. 
They plan for everything else, but they let their chil- 
dren grow up, having taken no definite thought about 
helping them to form their life habits and to establish 
these habits by practice. When a child comes home 
from school, the mother should find out just what work 
is to be done before the next day and should plan the 



106 The Science of Human Nature 

child's play and work in such a way as to include all 
necessary practice. If all parents would do this, the 
value to the work of the school and to the life of the 
child would be incalculable. 

(2) Just as one of the main purposes of the teacher is 
to help the child gain initiative, so it is one of the 
greatest of the parents* duties. Parents must help 
the children to keep their purposes before them. 
Children forget, even when they wish to remember. 
Often, they do not want to remember. The parents' 
duty is to get the child to want to remember, and to 
help him to remember, whether he wants to or not. 
One of the main differences between childhood and 
maturity is that the child lives in the present, his pur- 
poses are all immediate ones. Habits always look for- 
ward, they are for future good and use. Mature people 
have learned to look forward and to plan for the future. 
They must, therefore, perform this function for the 
children. They must look forward and see what the 
child should learn to do, and then see that he learns 
to do it. 

(3) Parents must help children to plan their lives in 
general and in detail ; i.e. in the sense of determining 
the ideals and habits that will be necessary for those 
lives. The parents must do this with the help of the 
child. The child must not be a blind follower, but as 
the child's mind becomes mature enough, the parent 
must explain the matter of forming life habits, and 
must show the child that life is a structure that he 
himself is to build. Life will be what he makes it, and 
the time for forming character is during early years. 
The parent must not only tell the child this but must 
help him to realize the truth of it, must help him con- 
tinually, consistently. 



Habit 107 



(4) Of course it is hardly necessary to say that the 
parent can help much, perhaps most, by example. 
The parent must not only tell the child what to do 
but must show him how it should be done. 

(5) Parents can help in the ways mentioned above, 
but they can also help by cooperating among themselves 
in planning for the training of the children of the com- 
munity. One parent cannot train his children inde- 
pendently of all the other people in the community. 
There must be a certain unity of ideals and aims. 
Therefore, not only is there need for cooperation 
between parents and teachers but among parents 
themselves. Although they cooperate in everything 
else, they seldom do in the training of their children. 
The people of a community should meet together occa- 
sionally to plan for this common work. 

Importance of Habit in Education and Life. A man 
is the sum of his habits and ideals. He has language 
habits ; he speaks German, or French, or English. He 
has writing habits, spelling habits, reading habits, 
arithmetic habits. He has political habits, religious 
habits. He has various social habits, habitual atti- 
tudes which he takes toward his fellows. He has moral 
habits — he is honest and truthful, or he is dishonest 
and untruthful. He always looks on the bright side, 
or else on the dark side of events. All these habits 
and many more, he has. They are structures which he 
has built. One's life, then, is the sum of his tendencies, 
and these tendencies one establishes in early life. 

This view gives an importance to the work of the 
school which is derived from no other view. The 
school is not a place where we get this little bit of in- 
formation, or the other. It is the place where we are 
molded, formed, and shaped into the beings we are 



108 The Science of Human Nature 

to be. The school has not risen to see the real im- 
portance of its work. Its aims have been low and its 
achievements much lower than its aims. Teachers 
should rise to the importance of their calling. Their 
work is that of gods. They are creators. They do 
not make the child. They do not give it memory or 
attention or imagination. But they are creators of 
tendencies, prejudices, religions, politics, and other 
habits unnumbered. So that in a very real sense, the 
school, with all the other educational influences, makes 
the man. We do not give a child the capacity to learn, 
but we can determine what he shall learn. We do not 
give him memory, but we can select what he shall 
remember. We do not make the child as he is at the 
beginning, but we can, in large measure, determine the 
world of influences which complete the task of making. 

In the early part of life every day and every hour of 
the day establishes and strengthens tendencies. Every 
year these tendencies become stronger. Every year 
after maturity, we resist change. By twenty-five or 
thirty, " character has set like plaster." The general 
attitude and view of the world which we have at 
maturity, we are to hold throughout life. Very few 
men fundamentally change after this. It takes a tre- 
mendous influence and an unusual situation to break 
one up and make him an essentially different man 
after maturity. Every year a " crank " becomes 
" crankier." 

It is well that this is so. Everything in the world 
costs its price. Rigidity is the price we pay for effi- 
ciency. In order to be efficient, we must make habitual 
the necessary movements. After they are habituated, 
they resist change. But habit makes for regularity 
and order. We could not live in society unless there 



Habit 109 



were regularity, order, fixity. Habit makes for con- 
servatism. But conservatism is necessary for order. 
In a sense, habit works against progress. But per- 
manent improvement without habit would be impos- 
sible, for permanent progress depends upon holding 
what we gain. It is well for society that we are con- 
servative. We could not live in the chaos that would 
exist without habit. Public opinion resists change. 
People refuse to accept a view that is different from 
the one they have held. We could get nowhere if we 
continually changed, and it is well for us that we con- 
tinue to do the old way to which we have become 
accustomed, till a new and better one is shown beyond 
doubt. Even then, it is probably better for an old 
person to continue to use the accustomed methods of a 
lifetime. Although better methods are developed, 
they will not be so good for the old person as those 
modes of action that he is used to. The possibility 
of progress is through new methods which come in with 
each succeeding generation. 

When we become old we are not willing to change, 
but the more [reasonable of us are willing that our 
children should be taught a better way. Some- 
times, of course, we find people who say that what was 
good enough for them is good enough for their children. 
Most of us think better, and wish to give our children 
a " better bringing up than ours has been." 

These considerations make clear the importance of 
habit in life. They should also make clear a very im- 
portant corollary. If habits are important in life, 
then it is the duty of parents and teachers to make a 
careful selection of the habits that are to be formed 
by the children. The habits that will be necessary for 
the child to form in order to meet the various situa- 



110 The Science of Human Nature 

tions of his future life, should be determined. There 
should be no vagueness about it. Definite habits, 
social, moral, religious, intellectual, professional, etc., 
will be necessary for efficiency. We should know what 
these various habits are, and should then set about 
the work of establishing them with system and deter- 
mination, just as we would the building of a house. 
Much school work and much home training is vague, 
indefinite, uncertain, done without a clear understand- 
ing of the needs or of the results. We therefore waste 
time, years of the child's life, and the results are un- 
satisfactory. 

Drill in School Subjects. In many school subjects, 
the main object is to acquire skill in certain processes. 
As previously explained, we can become skillful in an 
act only by repetition of the act. Therefore, in those 
subjects in which the main object is the acquiring of 
skill, there must be much repetition. This repetition 
is called drill. The matter of economical procedure 
in drill has already been considered, but there are cer- 
tain problems connected with drill that must be 
further discussed. 

Drill is usually the hardest part of school work. 
It becomes monotonous and tiresome. Moreover, 
drill is always a means. It is the means by which we 
become efficient. Take writing, for example. It is 
not an end in itself ; it is the means by which we convey 
thoughts „ Reading is a means by which we are able 
to get the thought of another. In acquiring a foreign 
language, we have first to master the elementary tools 
that will enable us to make the thought of the foreign 
language our own. 

It seems that the hardest part of education always 
comes first, when we are least able to do it. It used 



Habit 111 



to be that nearly all the work of the school was drill. 
There was little school work that was interesting in 
itself. In revolt against this kind of school, many 
modern educators have tried to plan a curriculum that 
would be interesting to the child. In schools that 
follow this idea, there is little or no drill, pure and simple. 
There is no work that is done for the sole purpose of 
acquiring skill. The work is so planned that, in pur- 
suing it, the child will of necessity have to perform the 
necessary acts and will thereby gain efficiency. In 
arithmetic, there is no adding, subtracting, multiply- 
ing, or dividing, only as such things must be done in 
the performance of something else that is interesting 
in itself. For example, the child plays store and 
must add up* the sales. The child plays bean bag and 
must add up the score. Practice gained in this indirect 
way is known as incidental drill. Direct drill consists 
in making a direct approach; we wish to be efficient 
at adding, so we practice adding as such and not merely 
as incidental to something else. 

This plan of incidental drill is in harmony with the 
principle of interest previously explained. There are 
several things, however, that must be considered. 
The proper procedure would seem to be to look for- 
ward and find out in what directions the child will 
need to acquire skill and then to help him acquire it 
in the most economical way and at the proper time. 
Nature has so made us that we like to do a new trick. 
When we have taught a child how to add and subtract, 
he likes to perform these operations because the opera- 
tions themselves give pleasure. Therefore much repe- 
tition can be allowed and much skill acquired by a 
direct approach to the practice. When interest drags, 
incidental drill can be fallen back upon to help out the 



112 The Science of Human Nature 

interest. Children should be taught that certain things 
must be done, certain skill must be acquired. They 
should accept some things on the authority of elders. 
They should be taught to apply themselves and to 
give their whole attention to a thing that must be done. 
A desire for efficiency can be developed in them. The 
spirit of competition can sometimes be effectively used 
to add interest to drill. Of course, interest and atten- 
tion there must be, and if it cannot be secured in one 
way, it must be in another. 

Experiments have abundantly shown the value of 
formal drill, that is to say, drill for drill's sake. If an 
arithmetic class is divided, one half being given a few 
minutes' drill on the fundamental operations each day 
but otherwise doing exactly the same work as the other 
half of the class, the half receiving the drill acquires 
much more skill in the fundamental operations and, 
besides, is better at reasoning out problems than the 
half that had no drill. The explanation of the latter 
fact is doubtless that the pupils receiving the drill ac- 
quire such efficiency in the fundamental operations 
that these cause no trouble, leaving all the energies of 
the pupils for reasoning out the problems. 

It has been shown experimentally that a direct 
method of teaching spelling is more efficient than an 
indirect method. It is not to be wondered at that such 
turns out to be the case. For in a direct approach, the 
act that we are trying to habituate is brought more 
directly before consciousness, receiving that focal atten- 
tion which is necessary for the most efficient practice 
in habit-formation. If one wishes to be a good ball 
pitcher, one begins to pitch balls, and continues pitch- 
ing balls day after day, morning, noon, and night. 
One does not go about it indirectly. If one wishes to 



Habit 113 



be a good shot with a rifle, one gets a rifle and goes to 
shooting. Similarly, if one wishes to be a good adder, 
the way to do is to begin adding, not to begin doing 
something else. Of course any method that will in- 
duce a child to realize that he ought to acquire a cer- 
tain habit, is right and proper. We must do all we 
can to give a child a desire, an interest in the thing that 
he is trying to do. But there is no reason why the 
thing should not be faced directly. 

Rules for Habit Formation. In the light of the 
various principles which we have discussed, what rules 
can be given to one forming habits? The evident 
answer is, to proceed in accordance with established 
principles. We may, however, bring the most im- 
portant of these principles together in the form of rules 
which can serve as a guide and help to one forming 
habits. 

(1) Get initiative. By this is meant that a person 
forming a habit should have some sustaining reason 
for doing it, some end that is being sought. This 
principle will be of very little use to young children, 
only to those old enough to appreciate reasons and ends. 
In arithmetic, for example, a child should be shown 
what can be accomplished if he possesses certain skill 
in addition, subtraction, and multiplication. It is 
not always possible for a young person to see why a 
certain habit should be formed. For the youngest 
children, the practice must be in the form of play. But 
when a child is old enough to think, to have ideals and 
purposes, reasons and explanations should be worked 
out. 

(2) Get practice. If you are to have skill, you must 
practice. Practice regularly, practice hard while you 
are doing it. Throw your whole life into it, as if what 



114 The Science of Human Nature 

you are doing is the most important thing in the world. 
Practice under good conditions. Do not think that 
just any kind of practice will do. Try to make condi- 
tions such that they will enable you to do your best 
work. Such conditions will not happen by chance. 
You must make them happen. You must make con- 
ditions favorable. You must seek opportunities to 
practice. You must realize that your life is in the mak- 
ing, that you are making it, that it is to a large extent 
composed of habits. These habits you are building. 
They are built only by practice. Get practice. When 
practicing, fulfill the psychological conditions. Work 
under the most favorable circumstances as to length 
of periods, intervals, etc. 

(3) Allow no exceptions. You should fully realize the 
great influence of exceptions. When you start in to 
form a habit, allow nothing to turn you from your 
course. Whether the habit is some fundamental 
moral habit or the multiplication table, be consistent, 
do not vacillate. Nothing is so strong as consistent 
action, nothing so weak as doubtful, wavering, un- 
certain action. Have the persistence of a bull dog 
and the regularity of planetary motion. 

Transfer of Training. Our problem now is to find 
out whether forming one habit helps one to form an- 
other. In some cases it does. The results of a recent 
experiment performed in the laboratory of educational 
psychology in the University of Missouri, will show 
what is meant. It was found that if a person prac- 
ticed distributing cards into pigeon holes till great pro- 
ficiency was attained, and then the numbering of the 
boxes or pigeon holes was changed, the person could 
learn the new numbering and gain proficiency in dis- 
tributing the cards in the new way more quickly than 



Habit 115 

was the case at first. Similarly, if one learns to run a 
typewriter with a certain form of keyboard, one can 
learn to operate a different keyboard much more 
quickly than was the case in learning the first key- 
board. 

It is probable that the explanation of this apparent 
transfer is that there are common elements in the two 
cases. Certain bonds established in the first habit are 
available in the second. In the case of distributing 
the cards, many such common elements can be made 
out. One gains facility in reading the numbering of 
the cards. The actual movement of the hand in get- 
ting to a particular box is the same whatever the num- 
ber of the box. One acquires schemes of associating 
and locating the boxes, schemes that will work in both 
cases. But suppose that one spends fifteen days in 
distributing cards according to one scheme of number- 
ing, and then changes the numbering and practices 
for fifteen days with the new numbering, at the end of 
the second fifteen days one has more skill than at the 
close of the first fifteen days. In fact, in five days one 
has as much skill in the new method as was acquired 
in fifteen days in the first method. However, and this 
is an important point, the speed in the new way is not 
so great as the speed acquired in thirty days using one 
method or one scheme all the time. Direct practice 
on the specific habit involved is always most efficient. 

One should probably never learn one thing just he- 
cause it will help him in learning something else, for 
that something else could be more economically learned 
by direct practice. Learning one language probably 
helps in learning another. A year spent in learning 
German will probably help in learning French. But 
two years spent in learning French will give more efii- 



116 The Science of Human Nature 

ciency in French than will be acquired by spending 
one year on German and then one year on French. If 
the only reason for a study is that it helps in learning 
something else, then this study should be left out of 
the curriculum. If the only reason for studying Latin, 
for example, is that it helps in studying English, or 
French, or helps in grammar, or gives one a larger 
vocabulary in English on account of a knowledge of 
the Latin roots, then the study of the language cannot 
be justified ; for all of these results could be much more 
economically and better attained by a direct approach. 
Of course, if Latin has a justification in itself, then these 
by-products are not to be despised. 

The truth seems to be that habits are very specific 
things. A definite stimulus goes over to a definite 
response. We must decide what habits we need to 
have established, and then by direct and economical 
practice establish these habits. It is true that in 
pursuing some studies, we acquire habits that are of 
much greater applicability in the affairs of life than 
can be obtained from other studies. When one has 
acquired the various adding habits, he has kinds of 
skill that will be of use in almost everything that is 
undertaken later. So also speaking habits, writing 
habits, spelling habits, moral habits, etc., are of uni- 
versal applicability. Whenever one undertakes to do 
a thing that involves some habit already formed, that 
thing is more easily done by virtue of that habit. One 
could not very well learn to multiply one number by 
another, such as 8,675,489 by 439,857, without first 
learning to add. 

This seems to be all there is to the idea of the trans- 
fer of training. One gets an act, or an idea, or an 
attitude, or a point of view that is available in a new 



Habit 117 



thing, thereby making the new thing easier. The 
methods one would acquire in the study of zoology 
would be, many of them, directly applicable in the 
study of botany. But, just as truly, one can acquire 
habits in doing one thing that will be a direct hindrance 
in learning another thing. Knocking a baseball unfits 
one for knocking a tennis ball. The study of literature 
and philosophy probably unfits one for the study of 
an experimental science because the methods are so 
dissimilar, in some measure antagonistic. 

Habit and Moral Training. By moral training, we 
mean that training which prepares one to live among 
his fellows. It is a training that prepares us to act 
in our relations with our fellow men in such a way as 
to bring happiness to our neighbors as well as to our- 
selves. Specifically, it is a training in honesty, truth- 
fulness, sympathy, and industry. There are other 
factors of morality but these are the most important. 
It is evident at once that moral training is the most 
important of all training. This is, at any rate, the view 
taken by society ; for if a man falls short in his relations 
with his fellows, he is punished. If the extent of his 
falling is very great, his liberty is entirely taken away 
from him. In some cases, he is put to death. Moral 
training, in addition to being the most important, is also 
the most difficult. What the public schools can do in 
this field is quite limited. The training which the child 
gets on the streets and at home almost overshadows it. 

Nature of Moral Training. A good person is one 
who does the right social thing at the right time. The 
more completely and consistently one does this, the 
better one is. What kind of training can one receive 
that will give assurance of appropriate moral action? 
Two things can be done to give a child this assurance. 



118 The Science of Human Nature 

The child can be led to form proper ideals of action 
and proper habits of action. By ideal of action, we 
mean that the child should know what the right action 
is, and have a desire to do it. Habits of action are 
acquired only through action. As has been pointed 
out in the preceding pages, continued action of a defi- 
nite kind develops a tendency to this particular action. 
One's character is the sum of his tendencies to action. 
These tendencies can be developed only through prac- 
tice, through repetition. Moral training, therefore, 
has the same basis as all other training, that is, in 
habits. The same procedure that we use in teaching 
the child the multiplication table is the one to use in 
developing honesty. In the case of the tables, we 
have the child say " fifty-six " for " eight times 
seven." We have him do this till he does it instantly, 
automatically. Honesty and truthfulness and the 
other moral virtues can be fixed in the same way. 

Home and Moral Training. The home is the most 
important factor in moral training. This is largely 
because of the importance of early habits and attitudes. 
Obedience to parents and respect for authority, which 
in a large measure underlie all other moral training, 
must be secured and developed in the early years of 
childhood. The child does not start to school till 
about six years old. At this age much of the founda- 
tion of morality is laid. Unless the child learns strict 
obedience in the first two or three years of life, it is 
doubtful whether he will ever learn it aright. With- 
out the habit of implicit obedience, it is difficult to 
establish any other good habit. 

Parents should understand that training in morality 
consists, in large measure, in building up habits, and 
should go about it in a systematic way. As various 



Habit 119 



situations arise in the early life of a child, the parents 
should obtain from him the appropriate responses. 
When the situations recur, the right responses should 
be again secured. Parents should continue to insist 
upon these responses till tendencies are formed for the 
right response to follow when the situation arises. 
After continued repetition, the response comes auto- 
matically. The good man or woman is the one who 
does the right thing as the situation presents itself, 
does it as a matter of course because it is his nature. 
He does not even think of doing^the wrong thing. 

One of the main factors in child training is con- 
sistency. The parent must inflexibly require the right 
action in the appropriate situation. Good habits will 
not be formed if parents insist on proper action one 
day but on the next day allow the child to do differently. 

Parents must plan the habits which they wish their 
children to form and execute these plans systematically, 
exercising constant care. Parents, and children as 
well, would profit from reading the plan used by Frank- 
lin. Farseeing and clear-headed, Franklin saw that 
character is a structure which one builds, so he set 
about this building in a systematic way. For a certain 
length of time he practiced on one virtue, allowing no 
exceptions in this one virtue. When this aspect of 
his character had acquired strength, he added another 
virtue and then tried to keep perfect as to both.^ 

The School and Moral Training. In this, as in all 
other forms of training, the school is supplementary 
to the home. The teacher should have well in mind 
the habits and ideals that the home has been trying 
to develop and should assist in strengthening the bonds. 
The school can do much in developing habits of kind- 
* See Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 



120 The Science of Human Nature 

ness and sympathy among the children. It can develop 
civic and social ideals and habits. Just how it can 
best do this is a question. Should moral ideals be 
impressed systematically and should habits be formed 
at the time these ideals are impressed, or should the 
different ideals be instilled and developed as occasion 
demands? This is an experimental problem, and that 
method should be followed which produces the best 
results. It is possible that one teacher may use one 
method best while a different teacher will have better 
success with another method. 

More important than the question of a systematic 
or an incidental method is the question of making the 
matter vital when it is taken up. Nothing is more 
certain than that mere knowledge of right action will 
not insure right action. In a few hours one can teach 
a child, as matters of mere knowledge, what he should 
do in all the important situations of life ; but this will 
not insure that he will henceforth do the right things. 

There are only two ways by which we can obtain 
any assurance that right action will come. The first 
way is to secure right habits of response. We must 
build up tendencies to action. Tendencies depend 
upon previous action. The second way is to help the 
child to analyze moral situations and see what results 
will follow upon the different kinds of action. There 
can be developed in a child a desire to do that which 
will bring joy and happiness to others, rather than 
pain and sorrow. But this analysis of moral situa- 
tions is not enough to insure right moral action ; there 
must be practice in doing the right thing. The situa- 
tion must go over to the right response to insure its 
going there the next time. The first thing in moral 
training is to develop habits. Then, as soon as the 



Habit 121 



child is old enough he can strengthen his habits by a 
careful analysis of the problem why one should act 
one way rather than another. This adds motive ; and 
motive gives strength and assurance. 

Summary. Habits are acquired tendencies to specific actions 
in definite situations. They are fixed through repetition. They 
give us speed, accuracy, and certainty, they save energy and pre- 
vent fatigue. They are performed with less attention and become 
pleasurable. The main purpose of education is to form the habits 
— moral, intellectual, vocational, cultural — necessary for life. 
Habits and ideals are the basis of our mature life and character. 
Moral training is essentially like other forms of training, habit 
being the basis. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Practice on the formation of some habit until considerable 
skill is acquired. Draw a learning curve similar to the one on 
page 95, showing the increase in skill. A class experiment can 
be performed by the use of a substitution test. Take letters to 
represent the nine digits, then transcribe numbers into the letters 
as described on page 192. Keep a record of successive five- 
minute periods of practice till all have practiced an hour. This 
gives twelve practice periods for the construction of a learning 
curve. The individual experiments should be more difficult and 
cover a longer period. Suitable experiments for individual prac- 
tice are: learning to operate a typewriter, pitching marbles into 
a hole, writing with the left hand, and mirror writing. The latter 
is performed by standing a mirror vertically on the table, placing 
the paper in front and writing in such a way that the letters have 
the proper form and appearance when seen in the mirror. The 
subject should not look at his hand but at its reflection in the 
mirror. A piece of cardboard can be supported just over the 
hand so that only the image of the hand in the mirror can be seen. 

2. A study of the interference of habit can be made as follows : 
Take eight small boxes and arrange them in a row. Number each 
box plainly. Do not number them consecutively, but as follows, 
5, 7, 1, 8, 2, 3, 6, 4. Make eighty cards, ten of each number, and 
number them plainly. Practice distributing the cards into the 
boxes. Note the time required for each distribution. Continue 



122 The Science of Human Nature 

to distribute them till considerable skill is acquired. Then re- 
arrange the order of the boxes and repeat the experiment. What 
do the results show? 

3. Does the above experiment show any transfer of training? 
Compare the time for each distribution in the second part of the 
experiment, i.e. after the rearrangement of the boxes, with the 
time for the corresponding distribution in the first part of the 
experiment. The question to be answered is: Are the results 
of the second part of the experiment better than they would 
have been if the first part had not been performed ? State your 
results and conclusions and compare with the statements in the 
text. 

4. A study of the effects of spreading out learning periods can 
be made as follows: Divide the class into two equal divisions. 
Let one division practice on a substitution experiment as explained 
in Exercise 1, for five ten-minute periods of practice in immediate 
succession. Let the other division practice for five days, ten 
minutes a day. What do the results indicate? The divisions 
should be of equal ability. If the first ten-minute practice period 
shows the sections to be of unequal ability, this fact should be 
taken into account in making the comparisons. Test sheets can 
be prepared by the teacher, or they can be obtained from the 
Extension Division of the University of Missouri. 

5. An experiment similar to No. 4 can be performed by prac- 
ticing adding or any other school exercise. Care must be taken 
to control the experiment and to eliminate disturbing factors. 

6. Try the card-distributing experiment with people of dif- 
ferent ages, young children, old people, and various ages in between. 
What do you learn? Is it as easy for an old person to form a 
habit as it is for a young person? Why? 

7. If an old person has no old habits to interfere, can he form 
a new habit as readily as can a young person? 

8. Cite evidence from your own experience to prove that it is 
hard for an old person to break up old habits and form new ones 
which interfere with the old ones. 

9. Do you find that you are becoming "set in your ways?" 

10. What do we mean by saying that we are "plastic in early 
years"? 

11. Have you planned your life work? Are you establishing 
the habits that will be necessary in it? 



Habit 123 



12. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to choose one's pro- 
fession or occupation early? 

13. Attention often interferes with the performance of a habit- 
ual act. Why is this? 

14. If a man removes his vest in the daytime, he is almost 
sure to wind his watch. On the other hand if he is up all night, 
he lets his watch run down. Why? 

15. Do you know of people who have radically changed their 
views late in life? 

16. Try to teach a dog or a cat a trick. What do you learn 
of importance about habit-formation? 

17. What branches taught in school involve the formation of 
habits that are useful throughout life? 

18. Make a list of the moral habits that should be formed in 
early years. 

19. Write an essay on Hahit and Life. 

20. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN AND Bagley : Human Behavior, Chapters XI and XVII. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, pp. 48-59 ; also Chapter XV. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapters X, XI, 

and XII. 
Rowe: Habit Formation, Chapters V-XIII. 
TiTCHENER : A Beginner's Psychology, p. 169, par. 37. 



CHAPTER VII 
MEMORY 

Perceptions and Ideas. In a previous chapter, 
brief mention was made of the difference between 
perceptions and ideas. This distinction must now be 
enlarged upon and made clearer. Perceptions arise 
out of our sensory life. We see things when these 
things are before our eyes. We hear things when 
these things produce air vibrations which affect our 
ears. We smell things when tiny particles from them 
come into contact with a small patch of sensitive mem- 
brane in our noses. We taste substances when these 
substances are in our mouths. Now, this seeing, 
hearing, smelling, tasting, etc., is perceiving. We per- 
ceive a thing when the thing is actually at the time 
affecting some one or more of our sense organs. A 
perception, then, results from the stimulation of a 
sense organ. Perception is the process of perceiving, 
sensing, objects in the external world. 

Ideas are our seeming to see, hear, smell, taste things 
when these things are not present to the senses. This 
morning I saw, had a perception of, a robin. To- 
night in my study, I have an idea of a robin. This 
morning the robin was present. Light reflected from 
it stimulated my eye. To-night, as I have an idea of 
the robin, it is not here ; I only seem to see it. The 
scene which was mine this morning is now revived, 

124 



Memory 125 



reproduced. We may say, therefore, that ideas are 
the conscious representatives of objects which are not 
present to the senses. Ideas are revived experiences. 

Revived experience is memory. Since it is mem- 
ory that enables us to Hve our Uves over again, 
brings the past up to the present, it is one of the most 
wonderful aspects of our natures. The importance of 
memory is at once apparent if we try to imagine what 
life would be without it. If our life were only percep- 
tual, if it were only the sights and sounds and smells 
and tastes of the passing moment, it would have little 
meaning, it would be bare and empty. But instead 
of our perceptions being our whole life, they are only 
the starting points of life. Perceptions serve to arouse 
groups of memory images or ideas, and the groups 
of ideas enrich the passing moment and give meaning 
to the passing perceptions, which otherwise would 
have no meaning. 

Suppose I am walking along the street and meet a 
friend. I see him, speak to him, and pass on. But 
after I have passed on, I have ideas. I think of see- 
ing my friend the day before. I think of what he said 
and of what he was doing, of what I said and of what 
I was doing. Perhaps for many minutes there come 
ideas from my past experience. These ideas were 
aroused by the perception of my friend. The percep- 
tion was momentary, but it started a long train of 
memory ideas. 

I pass on down the street and go by a music store. 
Within the store, a victrola is playing Jesus, Lover of 
My Soul. The song starts another train of memory 
ideas. I think of the past, of my boyhood days and 
Sunday school, my early home and many scenes of 
my childhood. For several minutes I am so engrossed 



126 The Science of Human Nature 

with the memory images that I scarcely notice any- 
thing along the street. Again, the momentary per- 
ception, this time of sounds, served to revive a great 
number of ideas, or memories, of the past. 

These illustrations are typical of our life. Every 
moment we have perceptions. These perceptions 
arouse ideas of our past life and experience. One of 
these ideas evokes another, and so an endless chain 
of images passes along. The older we become, the 
richer is our ideational life. While we are children, 
the perceptions constitute the larger part of our mental 
life, but as we become older, larger and larger becomes 
the part played by our memory images or ideas. A 
child is not content to sit down and reflect, giving 
himself up to the flow of ideas that come up from his 
past experience, but a mature person can spend hours 
in recalling past experience. This means that the 
older we grow, the more we live in the past, the less 
we are bound down by the present, and when we are 
old, instead of perceptions being the main part of 
mental life, they but give the initial push to our thoughts 
which go on in an endless chain as long as we live. 

The Physiological Basis of Memory. It will be 
remembered that the basis of perception is the agitation 
of the brain caused by the stimulation of a sense organ 
by an external thing or force. If there is no stimula- 
tion of a sense organ, there is no sensation, no percep- 
tion. Now, just as the basis of sensation and percep- 
tion is brain activity, so it is also the basis of ideas. 
In sensation, the brain activity is set up from with- 
out. In memory, when we have ideas, the brain activ- 
ity is set up from within and is a fainter revival of 
the activity originally caused by the stimulation of 
the sense organ. Our ideas are just as truly condi- 



Memory 127 



tioned or caused by brain activity as are our sensa- 
tions. 

Memory presents many problems, and psychologists 
have been trying for many years to solve them. We 
shall now see what they have discovered and what is 
the practical significance of the facts. 

Relation of Memory to Age and Sex. It is a com- 
mon notion that memory is best when we are young, 
but such is not the case. Numerous experiments 
have shown that all aspects of memory improve with 
age. Some aspects of memory improve more than 
others, and they improve at different times and rates ; 
but all aspects do improve. From the beginning of 
school age to about fourteen years of age the improve- 
ment of most aspects of memory is rapid. 

If we pronounce a number of digits to a child of 
six, it can reproduce but few of them, a child of eight 
or ten can reproduce more, a child of twelve can repro- 
duce still more, and an adult still more. If we read 
a sentence to children of different ages, we find that 
the older children can reproduce a longer sentence. 
If we read a short story to children of different ages, 
and then require them to reproduce the story in their 
own words, the older children reproduce more of the 
story than do the young children. ^ 

Girls excel boys in practically all the aspects of 
memory. 

In rote memory, that is, memory for lists of unre- 
lated words, there is not much difference ; but the girls 
are somewhat better. However, in the ability to 
remember the ideas of a story, girls excel boys at 
every age. This superiority of girls over boys is not 
merely a matter of memory. A girl is superior to 
^ See age and sex graphs, pp. 184, 188, 189. 



128 The Science of Human Nature 

a boy of the same age in nearly every way. This is 
merely a fact of development. A girl develops faster 
than a boy, she reaches maturity more quickly, in 
mind as well as in body. Although a girl is lighter 
than a boy at birth, on the average she gains in weight 
faster and is heavier at twelve than a boy of the same 
age. She also gains faster in height, and for a few 
years in early adolescence is taller than a boy of the 
same age. Of course, boys catch up and finally be- 
come much taller and heavier than girls. Similarly, 
a girl's mind develops faster than the mind of a boy, 
as shown in memory and other mental functions. 

The Improvement of Memory by Practice. All 
aspects of memory can be improved by practice, some 
aspects much, other aspects little. The memory 
span for digits, or letters, or words, or for objects can- 
not be much improved, but memory for ideas that 
are related, as the ideas of a story, can be considerably 
improved. In extensive experiments conducted in 
the author's laboratory, it was found that a person 
who at first required an hour to memorize the ideas 
in a certain amount of material, could, after a few 
months' practice, memorize the same amount in fifteen 
minutes. And in the latter case the ideas would be 
better remembered than they were at the beginning 
of the experiment. Not only could a given number 
of ideas be learned in less time, but they would be 
better retained when learned in the shorter time. 
If a person comes to us for advice as to how to improve 
his memory, what should we tell him? In order to 
answer the question, we must consider the factors of 
a good memory. 

Factors of a Good Memory. (1) The first require- 
ment is to get a good impression in the beginning. 



Memory 129 



Memory is revived experience. The more vivid 
and intense the first experience, the more sure will 
be the later recall. So if we wish to remember an 
experience, we must experience it in the first place 
under the most favorable conditions. The thing 
must be seen clearly, it must be understood, it must 
be in the focus of consciousness. 

The best teaching is that which leads the child to 
get the clearest apprehension of what is taught. If 
we are teaching about some concrete thing, a plant, 
a machine, we should be sure that the child sees the 
essential points, should be sure that the main principles 
enter his consciousness. We should find out by ques- 
tioning whether he really does clearly understand what 
we are trying to get him to understand. Often we 
think a pupil or student has forgotten, when the fact 
is that he never really knew the thing which we wished 
to have him remember. 

The first requisite to memory, then, is to know in 
the first place. If we wish to remember knowledge, 
the knowledge must be seen in the clearest light, really 
be knowledge, at the outset. Few people ever really 
learn how to learn. They never see anything clearly, 
they never stick to a point till it is apprehended in all 
its relations and bearings; consequently they forget, 
largely because they never really knew in the fullest 
sense. 

Most teaching is too abstract. The teacher uses 
words that have no meaning to the pupil. Too much 
teaching deals with things indirectly. We study 
about things instead of studying things. In geography, 
for example, we study about the earth, getting our 
information from a book. We read about land forma- 
tions, river courses, erosion, etc., when instead we 



130 The Science of Human Nature 

should study these objects and processes themselves. 
The first thing in memory, then, is clear apprehen- 
sion, clear understanding, vivid and intense impres- 
sion. 

(2) The second thing necessary to memory is to 
repeat the experience. First we must get a clear 
impression, then we must repeat the experience if 
we would retain it. It is a mistake to believe that 
if we have once understood a thing, we will always 
thereafter remember it. We must think our experi- 
ences over again if we wish to fix them for permanent 
retention. 

We must organize our experience. To organize 
experience means to think it over in its helpful rela- 
tions. In memory, one idea arouses another. When 
we have one idea, what other idea will this arouse? 
It depends on what connections this idea has had in 
our minds in the past. It depends on the associations 
that it has, and associations depend on our thinking 
the ideas over together. 

Teachers and parents should help children to think 
over their experiences in helpful, practical relations. 
Then in the future, when an idea comes to mind, it 
brings along with it other ideas that have these helpful, 
practical relations. We must not, then, merely repeat 
our experiences, but must repeat them in helpful con- 
nections or associations. In organizing our experi- 
ence, we must systematize and classify our knowledge. 

One of the chief differences in men is in the way they 
organize their knowledge. Most of us have experi- 
ences abundant enough, but we differ in the way we 
work over and organize these experiences. Organiza- 
tion not only enables us to remember our experience, 
but brings our experience back in the right connections. 



Memory 131 



The advice that should be given to a student is 
the following: Make sure that you understand. 
If the matter is a lesson in a book, go through it try- 
ing to get the main facts; then go through it again, 
trying to see the relation of all the facts. Then try- 
to see the facts in relation to your wider experience. 
If it is a history lesson, think of the facts of the 
lesson in their relation to previous chapters. Think 
of the details in their bearing on wider and larger 
movements. 

A teacher should always hold in mind the facts 
in regard to memory, and should make her teaching 
conform to them. She should carefully plan the pres- 
entation of a new topic so as to insure a clear initial 
impression. A new topic should be presented orally 
by the teacher, with abundant illustration and ex- 
planation. It cannot be made too concrete, it can- 
not be made too plain and simple. 

Then after the teacher has introduced and made 
plain the new topic, the pupil reads and studies further. 
At the next recitation of the class, the first thing in 
order should be a discussion, on the part of the pupils. 
This will help the pupils to get the facts cleared up and 
will help the teacher to find out whether the pupils 
have the facts right. 

The first part of the recitation should also be a 
time for questions. Everything should now be made 
clear, if there are any errors or misunderstandings on 
the pupil's part. Of course any procedure in a recita- 
tion should depend upon the nature of the material 
and to some extent on the stage of advancement of 
the pupil ; but in general such a procedure as that just 
outlined will be most satisfactory and economical : 
first clear initial presentation by the teacher; then 



132 The Science of Human Nature 

reading and study on the part of the pupil, and third, 
discussions on the following day. 

Teachers should also endeavor to show students 
how to study to the best advantage. Pupils do not 
know how to study. They do not know what to look 
for, and do not know how to find it after they know 
what they are looking for. They should be shown. 
Of course, some of them learn without help how to 
study. But some never learn, and it would be a great 
saving of time to help all of them master the arts of 
study and memorizing. 

A very important factor in connection with memory 
is the matter of meaning. If a person will try to mem- 
orize a list of nonsense words, he will find that it is 
much more difficult than to memorize words that 
have meaning. This is a significant fact. It means 
that as material approaches nonsense, it is difficult 
to memorize. Therefore we should always try to 
grasp the meaning of a thing, its significance. In 
science, let us always ask, what is the meaning of this 
fact? What bearing does it have on other facts? 
How does it affect the meaning of other facts ? 

Kinds of Memories. We should not speak of mem- 
ory as if it were some sort of power like muscular 
strength. We should always speak of memories. 
Memories may be classified from several different 
points of view : A classification may be based on the 
kind of material, as memory for concrete things, the 
actual objects of experience, on the one hand, and 
memory for abstract material, such as names of things, 
their attributes and relations, on the other. Again, we 
can base a classification on the type of ideation to 
which the material appeals, as auditory memory, visual 
memory, motor memory. We can also base a classi- 



Memory 133 



fication on the principle of meaning. This principle of 
classification would give us at least three classes : mem- 
ory for ideas as expressed in sentences, logical mem- 
ory ; memory for series of meaningful words not logi- 
cally related in sentences, rote memory ; memory for 
series of meaningless words, a form of rote memory. 
This classification is not meant to be complete, but 
only suggestive. With every change in the kind of 
material, the method of presenting the material to the 
subject, or the manner in which the subject deals with 
the material, there may be a change in the effectiveness 
of memory. 

While these different kinds or aspects of memory 
may have some relation to one another, they are to 
some extent independent. One may have a good 
rote memory and a poor logical memory, or a poor 
rote memory and a good logical memory. That is 
to say, one may be very poor at remembering the 
exact words of a book, but be good at remembering 
the meaning, the ideas, of the book. One may be 
good at organizing meaningful material but poor at 
remembering mere words. On the other hand, these 
conditions may be reversed; one may remember the 
words but never get the meaning. It is of course 
possible that much of this difference is due to habit 
and experience, but some of the difference is beyond 
doubt due to original differences in the nervous system 
and brain. These differences should be determined 
in the case of all children. It is quite a common 
thing to find a feeble-minded person with a good 
rote memory, but such a person never has a good logical 
memory. One can have a good rote memory without 
understanding, one cannot have a good logical memory 
without understanding. 



134 The Science of Human Nature 

Let us now ask the question, why can one remember 
better words that are connected by logical relations 
than words that have no such connection? If we 
read to a person a list of twenty nonsense words, the 
person can remember only two or three ; but if a list 
of twenty words connected in a sentence were read to 
a person, in most cases, all of them would be reproduced. 
The reason is that the words in the latter case are not 
new. We already know the words. They are already 
a part of our experience. We have had days, perhaps 
years, of experience with them. All that is now new 
about them is perhaps a slightly new relation. 

Moreover, the twenty words may contain but one, 
or at most only a few, ideas, and in this case it is the 
ideas that we remember. The ideas hold the words 
together. ^^' If the twenty words contain a great num- 
ber of ideas, then we cannot remember all of them 
from one reading. If I say, " I have a little boy who 
loves his father and mother very much, and this boy 
wishes to go to the river to catch some fish,'' one can 
easily remember all these words after one reading. But 
if I say, " The stomach in all the Salmonidse is syphonal 
and at the pylorus are fifteen to two hundred compara- 
tively large pyloric coeca " ; although this sentence 
is shorter, one finds it more difficult to remember, and 
the main reason is that the words are not so familiar. 

Memory and Thinking. What is the relation of 
memory to thinking and the other mental functions? 
One often hears a teacher say that she does not wish 
her pupils to depend on memory, but wishes them 
to reason things out. Such a statement shows a mis- 
understanding of the facts; for reasoning itself is 
only the recall of ideas in accordance with the laws of 
association. Without memory, there would be no 



Memory 135 



reasoning, for the very material of thought is found 
to be the revived experiences which we call ideas, 
memories. 

One of the first requisites of good thinking is a reli- 
able memory. One must have facts to reason, and 
these facts must come to one in memory to be avail- 
able for thought. If one wishes to become a great 
thinker in a certain field, he must gain experience in 
that field and organize that experience in such a way 
as to remember it and to recall it when it is wanted. 

What one does deplore is memory for the mere words 
with no understanding of the meaning. In geometry, 
for example, a student sometimes commits to memory 
the words of a demonstration, with no understanding 
of the meaning. Of course, that is worse than useless. 
One should remember the meaning of the demonstra- 
tion. If one has memorized the words only, he can- 
not solve an original problem in geometry. But if 
he has understood the meaning of the demonstration, 
then he recalls it, and is enabled to solve the problem. 
If one does not remember the various facts about the 
relationships in a triangle, he cannot solve a problem 
of the triangle until he has worked out and discovered 
the necessary facts. Then memory would make them 
available for the solution of the problem. 

Memory and School Standing. That memory plays 
a large part in our life is evident ; and, of course, it is 
an important factor in all school work. It matters 
not what we learn, if we do not remember it. The 
author has made extensive experiments to determine 
the relation that memory has to a child's progress in 
school. 

The method used was to give logical memory tests 
to all the children in a school and then rank the chil- 



136 The Science of Human Nature 

dren in accordance with their abihties to reproduce 
the story used in the test. Then they were ranked 
according to their standing in their studies. A very 
high correlation was found. On the whole, the pupils 
standing highest in the memory tests were found to 
stand highest in their studies. It is true, of course, 
that they did not stand highest merely because they 
had good memories, but because they were not only 
better in memory, but were better in most other re- 
spects too. Pupils that are good in logical memory 
are usually good in other mental functions. 

A test of logical memory is one of the best to give 
us an idea of the school standing of pupils. Not 
only is the retention of ideas of very great impor- 
tance itself, but the acquiring of ideas, and the or- 
ganizing of them in such a way as to remember them 
involves nearly all the mental functions. The one 
who remembers well ideas logically related, is the one 
who pays the closest attention, the one who sees the 
significance, the one who organizes, the one who re- 
peats, the one who turns things over in his mind. A 
logical memory test is therefore, to some extent, a test 
of attention, association, power of organization as well 
as of memory ; in a word, it is a test of mental power. 

Other things being equal, a person whose power 
of retention is good has a great advantage over his 
fellows who have poor ability to remember. Suppose 
we consider the learning of language. The pupil 
who can look up the meaning of a word just once and 
remember it has an advantage over the person who has 
to look up the meaning of the word several times before 
it is retained. So in any branch of study, the person 
who can acquire the facts in less time than another 
person, has the extra time for learning something else 



Memory 137 



or for going over the same material and organizing 
it better. The scientist who remembers all the signifi- 
cant facts that he reads, and sees their bearing on 
his problems, has a great advantage over the person 
who does not remember so well. 

Of course, there are certain dangers in having a 
good memory, just as there is danger in being brilliant 
generally. The quick learner is in danger of forming 
slovenly habits. A person who learns quickly is likely 
to form the habit of waiting till the last minute to 
study his lesson and then getting a superficial idea of 
it. The slow learner must form good habits of study 
to get on at all. 

Teachers and parents should prevent the bright 
children from forming bad habits of study. The per- 
son who learns quickly and retains well should be taught 
to be thorough and to use the advantage that comes 
from repetition. The quick learner should not be 
satisfied with one attack on his lesson, but should 
study the lesson more than once, for even the brilliant 
learner cannot afford to neglect the advantages that 
come from repetition. A person with poor memory 
and only mediocre ability generally can make up very 
much by hard work and by work that takes advantage 
of all the laws of economical learning. But he can 
never compete successfully with the person who works 
as hard as he does and who has good powers of learning 
and retention. 

The author has found that in a large class of a hundred 
or more, there is usually a person who has good mem- 
ory along with good mental ability generally, and is 
also a hard worker. Such a person always does the 
best work in the class. A person with poor memory 
and poor mental powers generally cannot hope to com- 



138 The Science of Human Nature 

pete with a person of good memory, good mental pow- 
ers generally, if that person is also a good worker. 

Learning and Remembering. A popular fallacy 
is expressed in the saying " Easy come, easy go." The 
person who is the best learner is also the best in re- 
taining what is learned, provided all other conditions 
are the same. This matter was determined in the 
following way: A logical memory test was given to 
all the children in a city school system. A story was 
read to the pupils and then reproduced by them in 
writing. The papers were corrected and graded and 
nothing more was said about the test for one month. 
Then at the same time in every room, the teachers 
said, " You remember the story I read to you some 
time ago and which I asked you to reproduce. Well, I 
wish to see how much of the story you still remember." 
The pupils were then required to write down all the 
story that they could recall. 

It was found that, in general, the children who write 
the most when the story is first read to them, write 
the most after the lapse of a month, and the poorest 
ones at first are the poorest ones at the end of the 
month. Of course, the correspondence is not perfect, 
but in some cases, in some grades, it is almost so. 

The significance of this experiment is very great. 
It means that the pupil who gets the most facts from 
a lesson will have the mosttfacts at any later time. This 
is true, of course, only if other things are equal. If one 
pupil studies about the matter more, reflects upon it, 
repeats it in his mind, of course this person will remem- 
ber more, other things being equal. But if neither 
reviews the matter, or if both do it to an equal extent, 
then the one who learns the most in the first place, 
remembers the most at a later time. 



Memory 139 



I have also tested the matter out in other ways. I 
have experimented with a group of men and women, 
by reading a passage of about a page in length, repeat- 
ing the reading till the subject could reproduce all 
the facts. It was found that the person who acquired 
all the facts from the fewest readings remembered 
more of the facts later. It must be said that there is 
less difference between the subjects later than at first. 

In the laboratory of Columbia University a similar 
experiment was performed, but in a somewhat differ- 
ent way. Students were required to commit to mem- 
ory German vocabularies and were later tested for 
their retention of the words learned. It was found 
that those who learned the most words in a given time, 
also retained the largest percentage of what had been 
learned. It should not be surprising that this is the 
case. The quick learner is the one who makes the 
best use of all the factors of retention, the factors 
mentioned in the preceding paragraph — good atten- 
tion, association, organization, etc. 

Another experiment performed in the author's 
laboratory bears out the above conclusions. A group 
of students were required to commit to memory at 
one sitting a long list of nonsense syllables. The num- 
ber of repetitions necessary to enable each student 
to reproduce them was noted. One day later, the 
students attempted to reproduce the syllables. Of 
course they could not, and they were then required 
to say them over again till they could just repeat them 
from memory. The number of repetitions was noted. 
The number of repetitions was much less than on the 
first day. On the third day, the process was repeated. 
The number of repetitions was fewer still. This 
relearning was kept up each day till each person could 



140 The Science of Human Nature 

repeat the syllables from memory without any study. 
It was found that the person who learned the syllables 
in the fewest repetitions the first time, relearned them 
in the fewest repetitions on succeeding days. All the 
experiments bearing on the subject point to the same 
conclusion; namely, that the quick learner, if other 
things are equal, retains at least as well as the slow 
learner, and usually retains better. 

Transfer of Memory Training. We have said above 
that there are many kinds or aspects of memory. It 
has also been said that we can improve memory by 
practice. Now, the question arises, if we improve 
one aspect of memory, does this improve all aspects? 
This is an important question ; moreover, it is one to 
be settled by experiment and not by argument. 

The most extensive and thorough experiment was 
performed by an English psychologist. Sleight. The 
experiment was essentially as follows: He took a 
large number of pupils and tested the efficiency of 
the various aspects of their memory. He then took 
half of them and trained one aspect of their memory 
until there was considerable improvement. The other 
section had no memory training meanwhile. After 
the training, both groups again had all aspects of their 
memory tested. Both groups showed improvement 
in all aspects because the first tests gave them some 
practice, but the group that had been receiving the 
training was no better in those aspects not trained 
than was the group receiving no training at all. As- 
pects of memory much like the one trained showed 
some improvement, but other aspects did not. 

The conclusion is that memory training is specific, 
that it affects only the kind of memory trained, and 
related memories. This is in harmony with what we 



Memory 141 



learned about habit. When we receive training, it 
affects only the parts of us trained and other closely- 
related parts. 

Learning by Wholes. We do not often have to 
commit to memory verbatim, but when we do, it is 
important that we should know the most economical 
way. Experiments have clearly demonstrated that the 
most economical way is to read the entire selection 
through from beginning to end and continue to read it 
through in this way till the matter is learned by heart. 

In long selections, the saving by this method is 
considerable. A pupil is not likely to believe this 
because if he spends a few minutes learning in this 
manner, he finds that he cannot repeat a single line, 
while if he had concentrated on one line, he could have 
repeated at least that much. This is true; but al- 
though he cannot repeat a single line by the whole 
procedure, he has learned nevertheless. It would 
be a good thing to demonstrate this fact to a class; 
then the pupils would be satisfied to use the most 
economical procedure. The plan holds good whether 
the matter be prose or poetry. 

But experiments have been carried on only with 
verbatim learning. The best procedure for learning 
the facts so that one can give them in one's own words 
has not yet been experimentally determined. 

Cramming. An important practical question is 
whether it pays to go over a great amount of material 
in a very short time, as students often do before ex- 
aminations. From all that has been said above, one 
could infer the solution to this problem. Learning 
and memorizing are to some extent a growth, and conse- 
quently involve time. 

There is an important law of learning and memory 



142 The Science of Human Nature 

known as Jost's law, which may be stated as follows : 
If we repeat or renew associations, the repetitions 
have most value for the old associations. Therefore 
when we learn, we should learn and then later relearn. 
This will make for permanent retention. Of course, 
if we wish to get together a great mass of facts for a 
temporary purpose and do not care to retain them per- 
manently, cramming is the proper method. If we 
are required to pass an examination in which a knowl- 
edge of many details is expected and these details 
have no important permanent value, cramming is 
justified. When a lawyer is preparing a case to present 
to a court, the actual, detail evidence is of no perma- 
nent value, and cramming is justified. 

But if we wish to acquire and organize facts for 
their permanent value, cramming is not the proper 
procedure. The proper procedure is for a student to 
go over his work faithfully as the term of school pro- 
ceeds, then occasionally review. At the end of the 
term, a rapid review of the whole term's work is valu- 
able. After one has studied over matter and once 
carefully worked it out, a quick view again of the whole 
subject is most valuable, and assists greatly in making 
the acquisition permanent. But if the matter has 
not been worked out before, the hasty view of the 
material of the course, while it may enable one to pass 
the examination, has no permanent value. 

Function of the Teacher in Memory Work. The 
function of a teacher is plainly to get the pupils to 
learn in accordance with the laws of memory above 
set forth ; but there are certain things that a teacher 
can do that may not have become evident to the reader. 
It has been learned in experiments in logical memory 
that when a story is read to a subject and the subject 



Memory 143 



attempts to reproduce it, certain mistakes are made. 
When the story is read again, it is common for the 
same mistakes to be made in the recall. Certain 
ideas were apprehended in a certain way; and, when 
the piece is read again, the subject pays no more at- 
tention to the ideas already acquired and reported, 
and they are therefore reported wrongly as they were in 
the first place. Often the subject does not notice 
the errors till his attention is called to them. 

This suggests an important function of the teacher 
in connection with the memory work of the pupils. 
This function is to correct mistakes in the early stages 
of learning. A teacher should always be on the watch 
to find the errors of the pupils and to correct them 
before they are fixed by repetition. 

A teacher should, also, consider it her duty to test 
the memory capacities of the pupils and to give each 
the advice that the case demands. 

Some Educational Inferences. — There are certain 
consequences to education that follow from the facts 
of memory above set forth that are of considerable 
significance. Many things have been taught to chil- 
dren on the assumption that they could learn them 
better in childhood than later, because it was thought 
that memory and the learning capacity were better 
in childhood. But both of these assmnptions are 
false. As children grow older their learning capacity 
increases and their memories become better. 

It has particularly been held that rote memory is 
better in childhood and that therefore children should 
begin their foreign language study early. It is true 
that as far as speaking a foreign language is concerned, 
the earlier a child begins it the better. But this is not 
true of learning to read the language. The sounds of 



144 The Science of Human Nature 

the foreign language that we have not learned in child- 
hood in speaking the mother tongue are usually diffi- 
cult for us to make. The organs of speech become set 
in the way of their early exercise. In reading the for- 
eign language, correct pronunciation is not important. 
We are concerned with getting the thought, and this is 
possible without pronouncing at all. Reference to 
graphs on pages 190 and 191 will show that rote memory 
steadily improves throughout childhood and youth. The 
author has performed numerous experiments to test 
this very point. He has had adults work side by side 
with children at building up new associations of the 
rote memory type and found that always the adult 
could learn faster than the child and retain better 
what was learned. 

The experience of language teachers in college and 
university does not give much comfort to those who 
claim that language study should be begun early. 
These teachers claim that the students who have had 
previous language study do no better than those who 
have had none. It seems, however, that there cer- 
tainly ought to be some advantage in beginning lan- 
guage study early and spreading the study out over 
the high school period. But what is gained does not 
offset the tremendous loss that follows from requiring 
all high school students to study a foreign language 
merely to give an opportunity for early study to those 
who are to go on in the university with language 
courses. A mature university student that has a real 
interest in language and literature can begin his lan- 
guage study in the university and make rapid progress. 
Some of the best classical scholars whom the author 
knows began their language study in the university. 
While it would have been of some advantage to them 



Memory 145 



to have begun their language study earlier, there are 
so few who should go into this kind of work that society 
cannot afford to make provision for their beginning 
the study in the high school. 

The selection and arrangement of the studies in the 
curriculum must be based on other grounds than the 
laws of memory. What children make most progress 
in and need most to know are the concrete things of 
their physical and social environment. Children must 
first learn the world — the woods and streams and birds 
and flowers and plants and animals, the earth, its 
rocks and soils and the wonderful forces at work in it. 
They must learn man, — what he is and what he does 
and how he does it; how he lives and does his work 
and how he governs himself. They should also learn 
to read and to write their mother tongue, and should 
learn something of that great store of literature written 
in the mother tongue. 

The few that are to be scholars in language and liter- 
ature must wait till beginning professional study before 
taking up their foreign language; just as a person 
who is to be a lawyer or physician must also wait 
till time to enter a university before beginning special 
professional preparation. The child's memory for 
abstract conceptions is particularly weak in early 
years; hence studies should be so arranged as to ac- 
quaint the child with the concrete aspects of the world 
first, and later to acquaint him with the abstract rela- 
tions of things. Mathematics should come late in the 
child's life, for the same reason. Mathematics deals 
with quantitative relations which the child can neither 
learn nor remember profitably and economically till 
he is more mature. The child should first learn the 
world in its descriptive aspects. 



146 The Science of Human Nature 

Memory and Habit. The discussion up to this 
point should have made it clear to the reader that 
memory is much the same thing as habit. Memory 
considered as retention depends upon the permanence 
of the impression on the brain; but in its associative 
aspects depends on connections between brain centers, 
as is the case with habit. The association of ideas, 
which is the basis of their recall, is purely a matter of 
habit formation. 

When I think of George Washington, I also think 
of the Revolution, of the government, of the presi- 
dency, of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc., because 
of the connections which these ideas have had in my 
mind many times before. There is a basis in the brain 
structure for these connections. There is nothing 
in any idea that connects it with another idea. Ideas 
become connected because of the way in which we ex- 
perience them, and the reason one idea calls up another 
idea is because the brain process that is the cause of 
one idea brings about another brain process that is 
the cause of a second idea. The whole thing is merely 
a matter of the way the brain activities become or- 
ganized. Therefore the various laws of habit-forma- 
tion have application to memory in so far as memory 
is a matter of the association of ideas, based on brain 
processes. 

One often has the experience of trying to recall a 
name or a fact and finds that he cannot. Presently 
the name or fact may come, or it may not come till 
the next day or the next week. What is the cause 
of this peculiar phenomenon? The explanation is 
to be found in the nervous system. When one tries 
to recall the name and it will not come to mind, there 
is some temporary block or hindrance in the nerve- 



Memory 



147 



path that leads from one center to the other and one 
cannot think of the name till the obstruction is removed. 
We go on thinking about other things, and in the mean- 
time the activities going on in the brain remove the 
obstruction; so when the matter comes up again, 
the nerve current shoots through, and behold, the 
name comes to mind. 

Now the only preventive of such an occurrence is 
to be found in the law of habit, for the block ordi- 




FiGURE IV — Associative Connections 

The diagram represents schematically the neural basis of the 

association of ideas. 

narily occurs in case of paths or bonds not well estab- 
lished. We must think together the things we wish 
to have associated. Repetition is the key to the situa- 
tion, repetition which is the significant thing in habit- 
formation, repetition which is the only way of coupling 
two things which we wish to have associated together. 



148 The Science of Human Nature 

Of course, there is no absolute coupling of two ideas. 
One sometimes forgets his own name. When we are 
tired or ill, things which were the most closely associ- 
ated may not hang together. But those ideas hold 
together in the firmest way that have been experienced 
together most often in a state of attention. The dia- 
gram on page 147 illustrates schematically the neural 
connections and cross-connections which are the bases 
of the association of ideas, the circles A, B, C, D, E, 
and F represent brain processes which give rise to 
ideas, and the lines represent connecting paths. Note 
that there are both direct and indirect connections. 

Summary. Sensation and perception give us our first experi- 
ence with things; memory is revived experience. It enables 
us to live our experience over again and is therefore one of the 
most important human traits. The physiological basis of memory 
is in the brain and nervous system. Memory improves with 
practice and up to a certain point with the age of the person. It 
is better in girls than in boys. Good memory depends on vivid 
experience in the first place and on organization and repetition 
afterward. The person who learns quickly usually retains well 
also. Memory training is specific. The extension of the learn- 
ing process over a long time is favorable to memory. Memory 
ideas are the basis of thinking and reasoning. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. The teacher can test the auditory memory of the members 
of the class for rote material by using letters. It is better to omit 
the vowels, using only the consonants. Prepare five groups of 
letters with eight letters in a group. Read each group of letters 
to the class, slowly and distinctly. After reading a group, allow 
time for the students to write down what they recall, then read 
the next group and so proceed till the five groups have been 
read. Grade the work by finding the number of letters reproduced, 
taking no account of the position of the letters. 

2. In a similar way, test visual memory, using different combina- 
tions of letters. Write the letters plainly on five large squares of 



Memory 149 



cardboard. Hold each list before the class for as long a time as it 
took to read a group in experiment No. 1. 

3. Test memory for words in a similar way. Use simple words 
of one syllable, making five lists with eight words in a list. 

4. Test memory for objects by fastening common objects on 
a large cardboard and holding the card before the class. Put 
eight objects on each card and prepare five cards. Expose them 
for the same length of time as in experiment No. 2. 

5. Test memory for names of objects by preparing five lists of 
names, eight names in a list, and reading the names as in experi- 
ment No. 1. 

6. You now have data for the following study : Find the average 
grade of each student in the different experiments. Find the 
combined grade of each student in all the above experiments. 
Do the members of the class hold the same rank in all the tests? 
How do the boys compare with the girls? How does memory 
for objects compare with memory for names of objects? How 
does auditory memory compare with visual? What other points 
do you learn from the experiments? 

7. The teacher can make a study of the logical memory of the 
members of the class by using material as described on page 184. 
Make five separate tests, using stories that are well within the 
comprehension of the class and that will arouse their interest. 
Sufficient material will be found in the author's Examination of 
School Children and Whipple's Manual. However, the teacher 
can prepare similar material. 

8. Do the students maintain the same rank in the separate 
tests of experiment No. 7? Rank all the students for their com- 
bined standing in all the first five tests. Rank them for their 
combined standing in the logical memory tests. Compare the 
two rankings. What conclusions are warranted? 

9. You have tested, in experiment No. 7, logical memory 
when the material was read to the students. It will now be inter- 
esting to compare the results of No. 7 with the results obtained 
by allowing the students to read the material of the test. For 
this purpose, select portions from the later chapters of this book. 
Allow just time enough for the selection to be read once slowly by 
the students, then have it reproduced as in the other logical memory 
experiment. Give several tests, if there is sufficient time. Find 
the average grade of each student, and compare the results with 
those obtained in No. 7. This will enable you to compare the 



150 The Science of Human Nature 

relative standing of the members of the class, but will not enable 
you to compare the two ways of acquiring facts. For this pur- 
pose, the stories would have to be of equal difficulty. Let the 
members of the class plan an experiment that would be adequate 
for this purpose. 

10. A brief study of the improvement of memory can be made 
by practicing a few minutes each day for a week or two, as time 
permits, using material that can be easily prepared, such as lists 
of common words. Let the members of the class plan the experi- 
ment. Use the best plan. 

11. The class can make a study of the relation of memory 
to school standing in one of the grades below the high school. 
Give at least two tests for logical memory. Give also the rote 
memory tests described on page 189. Get the class standing of 
the pupils from the teacher. Make the comparison as suggested 
in Chapter I, page 15. Or, the correlation can be worked out 
accurately by following the directions given in the Examination 
of School Children, page 58, or in Whipple's Manual, page 38. 

12. Let the members of the class make a plan for the improve- 
ment of their memory for the material studied in school. Plan 
devices for learning the material better and for fixing it in memory. 
At the end of the course in psychology, have an experience meeting 
and study the results reported. 

13. Prepare five lists of nonsense syllables, with eight in a list. 
Give them as in experiment No. 3, and compare the results with 
those of that experiment. What do the results indicate as to the 
value to memory of meaningful material? What educational 
inferences can you make? In preparing the syllables, put a 
vowel between two consonants, and use no syllable that is a real 
word. 

14. A study of the effects of distractions on learning and mem- 
ory can be made as follows : Let the teacher select two paragraphs 
in later chapters of this book, of equal length and difficulty. Let 
the students read one under quiet conditions and the other while 
an electric bell is ringing in the room. Compare the repro- 
ductions in the two cases. 

15. From the chapter and from the results of all the memory 
tests, let the students enumerate the facts that have educational 
significance. 

16. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 



Memory 151 



REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN and Bagley : Human Behavior, Chapter XV. 
MiJNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 165-170. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapters VI and VIII. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psycnocogy, Chapter XIII. 
Titchener: A Beginner's Psychology, Chapter VII. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THINKING 

In Chapter III we learned about sensation. We found 
that when a sense organ is stimulated by its appro- 
priate type of stimulus, this stimulation travels through 
the sensory nerves and sets up an excitation in the 
brain. This excitation in the brain gives us sensa- 
tion. We see if the eye is stimulated. We hear if 
the ear is stimulated, etc. In Chapter VII we learned 
that after the brain has had an excitation giving rise 
to sensation, it is capable of reviving this excitation 
later. This renewal or revival of a brain excitation 
gives us an experience resembling the original sensa- 
tion, only usually fainter and less stable. This revived 
experience is called image or idea. The general process 
of retention and revival of experience is, as we have 
seen, known as memory. An idea, then, is a bit of 
revived experience. A perception is a bit of immedi- 
ate or primary experience. I am said to perceive a 
chair if the chair is present before me, if the light re- 
flected from the chair is actually exciting my retinas. 
I have an idea of the chair when I seem to see it, when 
the chair is not before me or when my eyes are shut. 
These distinctions were pointed out in the preceding 
chapter. Let us now proceed to carry our study of 
ideas further. 

Association of Ideas. The subject of the associa- 
tion of ideas can best be introduced by an experiment. 

152 



Thinking 153 



Take a paper and pencil, and think of the word ** horse." 
Write this word down, and then write down other words 
that come to mind. Write them in the order in which 
they come to mind. Do this for three or four minutes, 
and try the experiment several times, beginning with 
a different word each time. Make a study of the lists 
of words. Compare the different lists and the lists 
written by different students. 

In the case of the writer, the following words came 
to mind in the first few seconds : horse, bridle, saddle, 
tail, harness, buggy, whip, man, sky, stars, sun, ocean. 
Why did these words come, and why did they come 
in that order? Why did the idea "horse" suggest 
the idea " bridle " ? And why did " bridle " suggest 
" saddle "? Is there something in the nature of ideas 
that couples them with certain other ideas and makes 
them always suggest the other ideas? No, there is 
not. Ideas become coupled together in our experi- 
ence, and the coupling is in accordance with our ex- 
perience. Things that are together in our experience 
become coupled together as ideas. The idea " horse " 
may become coupled with any other idea. The gen- 
eral law of the association of ideas is this : Ideas are 
joined together in memory or revived experience as 
they were joined in the original or perceptive experi- 
ence. 

But the matter is complicated by the fact that things 
are experienced in different connections in perceptive 
experience . I do not always experience "horse " together 
with "bridle." I sometimes see horses in a pasture 
eating clover. So, as far as this last experience is con- 
cerned, when I think " horse " I should also think 
' ' clover. ' ' I sometimes see a horse running when a train 
whistles, so " whistle " and " horse " should be coupled 



154 The Science of Human Nature 

in my mind. A horse once kicked me on the shoulder, 
so "horse" and "shoulder" should be connected in 
my mind. And so they are. The very fact that these 
various experiences come back to me proves that they 
are connected in my mind in accordance with the orig- 
inal experiences. The revival of various horse experi- 
ences has come to me faster than I could write them 
down, and they are all bound together in my memory. 
If I should write them all out, it would take many 
hours, perhaps days. 

Not only are these " horse ideas " bound together 
with one another, but they are bound more or less 
directly, more or less closely, to everything else in my 
life. I can, therefore, pass in thought from the idea 
" horse " to any other idea, directly or indirectly. 
Now, in any given case, what idea will actually come 
first after I have the idea "horse"? This depends 
upon the tendencies established in the nervous system. 
The brain process underlying the idea '' horse " has 
connections with many other processes and tends to 
excite these processes. The factors that strengthen 
these tendencies or connections are the frequency, 
recency, primacy, and vividness of experience. Let 
us consider, in some detail, each of these factors. 

Primacy of Experience. A strong factor in deter- 
mining association is the first experience. The first, 
the original, coupling of ideas tends to persist. The 
first connection is nearly always a strong one, and is 
also strengthened by frequent repetition in memory. 
Our first experience with people and things persists 
with great strength, across the years, in spite of other 
associations and connections established later. Just 
now there comes to mind my first experience with a 
certain famous scientist. It was many years ago. 



Thinking 155 



I was a student in an eastern university. This man 
gave a public lecture at the opening of the session. I 
remember many details of the occurrence with great 
vividness. Although I studied under this man for 
three years, no other experience with him is more 
prominent than the first. First experiences give rise 
to such strong connections between ideas that these 
connections often persist and hold their own as against 
other connections depending upon other factors. 

The practical consequences of this factor in teach- 
ing are, of course, evident. Both teachers and parents 
should take great care in the matter of the first experi- 
ences of children. If the idea-connections of first 
experiences are likely to persist, then these connections 
should be desirable ones. They should not be use- 
less connections, nor should they, ordinarily, be con- 
nections that will have to be radically undone later. 
Usually it is not economical to build up connections 
between ideas that will not serve permanently, except 
in cases in which the immaturity of the mind makes 
such a procedure necessary. 

Recency of Experience. The most recent connec- 
tion of ideas is relatively strong, and is often the 
determining one. But the most recent connection 
must be very recent or it has no especial value. If I 
have seen a certain friend to-day, and his name is brought 
to mind now, to-day's experience with him will likely 
be brought to mind first. But if my last seeing him 
was some days or months ago, the idea-connection 
of the last meeting has no great value. Of course, 
circumstances always alter the matter. Perhaps we 
should say in the last instance that, other things 
being equal, the last experience has no special value. 
If the last experience was an unusual one, such as a 



156 The Science of Human Nature 

death or a marriage, then it has a value due to its 
vividness and intensity and its emotional aspects. 
These factors not only add strength to the connections 
made at the time but are the cause of frequent revivals 
of this last experience in memory in the succeeding 
days. All these factors taken together often give 
a last experience great associative strength, even 
though the last experience is not recent. 

Frequency of Experience. The most frequent con- 
nection of ideas is probably the most important factor 
of all in determining future associations. The first 
connection is but one, and the last connection is but 
one, while repeated connections may be many in num- 
ber. Connections which recur frequently usually 
overcome all other connections. Hence frequency 
is the dominant factor in association. Most of the 
strength of first connections is due to repetitions in 
memory later. The first experience passes through 
the mind again and again as memory, and thereby 
becomes strengthened. The fact that repetition of 
connections establishes these connections is, of course, 
the justification of drill and review in school studies. 
The practical needs of life demand that certain ideas 
be associated so that one calls up the other. Teachers 
and parents, knowing these desirable connections, 
endeavor to fix them in the minds of children by repe- 
tition. The important facts of history, literature, 
civics, and science we endeavor, by means of repetition, 
to fasten in the child^s mind. 

Vividness and Intensity of Experience. A vivid 
experience is one that excites and arouses us, strongly 
stimulating our feelings. Such experiences establish 
strong bonds of connection. When I think of a rail- 
road wreck, I think of one in which I participated. 



Thinking 157 



The experience was vivid, intense, and aroused my 
emotions. I hardly knew whether I was dead or 
alive. Then, secondly, I usually think of a wreck 
which I witnessed in childhood. A train plunged 
through a bridge and eighteen cars were piled up in 
the ravine. The experience was vivid and produced 
a deep and lasting impression on me. 

The practical significance of this factor is, of course, 
great. When ideas are presented to pupils these 
ideas should be made clear. Every conceivable device 
should be used to clarify and explain, — concrete 
demonstration, the use of objects and diagrams, pic- 
tures and drawings, and abundant oral illustration. 
We must be sure that the one taught understands, 
that the ideas become focal in consciousness and take 
hold of the individual. This is the main factor in 
what is known as " interest." An interesting thing 
is one that takes hold of us and possesses us so that 
we cannot get away from it. Such experiences are 
vivid and have rich emotional connections or accom- 
paniments. Ideas that are experienced together at 
such times are strongly connected. 

Mental Set or Attitude. Another influence always 
operative in determining the association of ideas is 
mental set. By mental set we mean the mood or 
attitude one is in, — whether one is sad or glad, well 
or ill, fresh or fatigued, etc. What one has just been 
thinking about, what one has just been doing, are 
always factors that determine the direction of associa- 
tion. One often notices the effects of mental set 
in reading newspapers. If one^s mind has been deeply 
occupied with some subject and one then starts to 
read a newspaper, one may actually miscall many of 
the words in the article he is reading ; the words are 



158 The Science of Human Nature 

made to fit in with what is in his mind. For example, 
if one is all wrought up over a wedding, many words 
beginning with ''w" and having about the same length 
as the word " wedding," will be read as " wedding." 

Mental set may be permanent or temporary. By 
permanent we mean the strong tendencies that are 
built up by continued thought in a certain direction. 
One becomes a Methodist, a Democrat, a conservative, 
a radical, a pessimist, an optimist, etc., by continuity 
of similar experiences and similar reactions to these 
experiences. Germans, French, Irish, Italians, Chi- 
nese, have characteristic sets or ways of reacting to 
typical situations that may be called racial. These 
prejudicial ways of reacting may be called racial sets 
or attitudes. Religious, political, and social prejudices 
may all be called sets or attitudes. 

Temporary sets or attitudes are leanings and preju- 
dices that are due to temporary states of mind. The 
fact that one has headache, or indigestion, or is in a 
hurry, or is angry, or is hungry, or is emotionally ex- 
cited over something will, for the time, be a factor in 
determining the direction of association. 

One of the tasks of education is to build up sets or 
attitudes, permanent prejudices, to be constant factors 
in guiding association and, consequently, action. We 
wish to build up permanent attitudes toward truth, 
honesty, industry, sympathy, zeal, persistence, etc. 
It is evident that attitude is merely an aspect of habit. 
It is an habitual way of reacting to a definite and 
typical situation. This habitual way is strengthened 
by repetition, so that set or attitude finally, after 
years of repetition, becomes a part of our nature. 
Our prejudices become as strong, seemingly, as our 
instinctive tendencies. After a man has thought in 



Thinking 159 



a particular groove for years, it is about as sure that 
he will come to certain definite conclusions on matters 
in the line of his thought as that he would give typical 
instinctive or even reflex reactions. We know the 
direction association will take for a Presbyterian in 
religious matters, for a Democrat in political matters, 
with about as much certainty as we know what their 
actions will be in situations that evoke instinctive 
reactions. 

Thinking and Reasoning. Thinking is the passing 
of ideas in the mind. This flow of ideas is in accord- 
ance with the laws of association above discussed. 
The order in which the ideas come is the order fixed 
by experience, the order as determined by the various 
factors above enumerated. 

In early life, one's mind is chiefly perceptual, it is 
what we see and hear and taste and smell. As one 
grows older his mind grows more and more ideational. 
With increasing age, a larger and larger percentage of 
our mental life is made up of ideas, of memories. The 
child lives in the present, in a world of perceptions. 
A man is not so much tied down to the present; he 
lives in memory and anticipation. He thinks more 
than does the child. A man is content to sit down 
in his chair and think for hours at a time, a child is 
not. This thinking is the passing of ideas, now one, 
then another and another. These ideas are the sur- 
vivals or revivals of our past experience. The order 
of their coming depends on our past experience. 

As I sit here and write, there surge up out of my past, 
ideas of creeks and rivers and hills, horses and cows 
and dogs, boys and girls, men and women, work and 
play, school days, friends, — an endless chain of 
ideas. This " flow " of ideas is often started by a 



160 The Science of Human Nature 

perception. For illustration, I see a letter on the 
table, a letter from my brother. I then have a visual 
image of my brother. I think of him as I saw him 
last. I think of what he said. I think of his children, 
of his home, of his boyhood, and our early life together. 
Then I think of our mother and the old home, and so 
on and on. Presently I glance at a history among 
my books, and immediately think of Greece and Athens 
and the Acropolis, Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, school- 
mates and teachers, and friends connected in one way 
or another with my college study of Greek. 

In this description of the process of thinking, I have 
repeatedly used the words " think of." I might 
have said instead, " there came to mind ideas of Athens, 
ideas of friends,'' etc. Thinking, then, is a general 
term for our idea-life. 

Reasoning is a form of thinking. Reasoning, too, 
is a flow of ideas. But while reasoning is thinking, 
it is a special form of thinking; it is thinking to a 
purpose. In thinking as above described and illus- 
trated, no immediate ends of the person are served; 
while in reasoning some end is always sought. In 
reasoning, the flow of ideas must reach some particular 
idea that will serve the need of the moment, the need 
of the problem at hand. Reasoning, then, is controlled 
thinking, thinking centering about a problem, about 
a situation that one must meet. 

The statement that reasoning is controlled thinking 
needs some explanation, for the reader at once is likely 
to want to know what does the controlling. There is 
not some special faculty or power that does the con- 
trolling. The control is exercised by the set into which 
one is thrown by the situation which confronts one. 
The set puts certain nerve-tracts into readiness to 



Thinking 161 



conduct, or in other words, makes certain groups 
of ideas come into mind, and makes one satisfied 
only if the right ideas come. As long as ideas come 
that do not satisfy, the flow keeps on, taking one 
direction and then another, in accordance with the 
way our ideas have become organized. An idea finally 
comes that satisfies. We are then said to have reached 
a conclusion, to have made up our mind, to have solved 
our problem. 

But the fact that we are satisfied is no sure sign that 
the problem is correctly solved. It means only that 
our past experiences, available at the time through 
association, say that the conclusion is right. Or, in 
more scientific terms, that the conclusion is in harmony 
with our past experience, as it has been organized and 
made available through association. There is not 
within us a little being, a reasoner, that sits and watches 
ideas file by and passes judgment upon them. The 
real judge is our nervous system with its organized 
bonds or connections. 

An illustration may make the matter clearer: A 
boy walking along in the woods comes to a stream too 
wide for him to jump across. He wishes to be on the 
other side, so here is a situation that must be met, a 
problem that must be solved. A flow of ideas is started 
centering about the problem. The flow is entirely 
determined and directed by past experience and the 
present situation. The boy pauses, looks about, and 
sees on the bank a pole and several large stones. He 
has walked on poles and on fences, he therefore sees 
himself putting the pole across the stream and walking 
on it. This may be in actual visual imagery, or it 
may be in words. He may merely say, " I will put 
the pole across and walk on it." But, before having 



162 The Science of Human Nature 

time to do it, he may recall walking on poles that 
turned. He is not then satisfied with the pole idea. 
The perception of stones may next become clear 
in his mind, and if no inhibiting or hindering idea comes 
up, the stone idea carries him into action. He piles 
the stones into the stream and walks across. 

As was mentioned above, the flow of ideas may take 
different forms. The imagery may take any form but 
is usually visual, auditory, motor, or verbal. 

Further discussion of the point that reasoning is 
determined by past experience may be necessary. 
Suppose the teacher ask the class a number of different 
questions, moral, religious, political. Many different 
answers to the questions will be received, in some cases 
as many answers to the questions as there are pupils. 
Ask whether it is ever right to steal, whether it is ever 
right to lie, whether it is ever right to fight, whether 
it is ever right to disobey a parent or teacher, whether 
oak is stronger than maple, whether iron expands more 
when heated than does copper, whether one should 
always feed beggars, etc. The answers received, 
in each case, depend on the previous experience of 
the pupils. The more nearly alike the experiences 
of the pupils, the more nearly alike will be the answers. 
The more divergent the experiences, the more different 
will be the answers. 

The basis of reasoning is ultimately the same sort 
of thing as the basis of habit. We have repeated 
experiences of the same kind. The ideas of these 
experiences become welded together in a definite way. 
Association between certain groups of ideas becomes 
well fixed. Later situations involving these groups 
of ideas set up definite trains of association. We come 
always to definite conclusions from the same situations 



Thinking 163 



provided that we are in the same mental set and the 
factors involved are the same. 

Throughout early life we have definite moral and 
religious ideas presented to us. We come to think 
in definite ways about them or with them. It there- 
fore comes about that every day we live, we are deter- 
mining the way we shall in the future reason about 
things. We are each day getting the material for the 
solution of the problems that will be presented to us 
by future situations. And the reason that one of us 
will solve those problems in a different way from another 
is because of having somewhat different experiences, 
and of organizing them in a different way. 

Meaning and the Organization of Ideas. In the 
preceding paragraphs we have several times spoken 
of the organization of ideas. Let us now see just 
what is meant by this expression. Intimately con- 
nected with the organization of ideas is meaning. 
What is the meaning of an idea? The meaning 
of an idea is another idea or group of ideas that are 
very closely associated with it. When there comes 
to mind an idea that has arisen out of repeated experi- 
ence, there come almost immediately with it other 
ideas, perhaps vivid images which have been connected 
with the same experience. Suppose the idea is of a 
horse. If one were asked, "What is a horse?" 
ideas of a horse in familiar situations would present 
themselves. One may see in imagination a horse 
being driven, ridden, etc., and he would then answer, 
" Why, a horse is to ride," or " A horse is to drive," 
or " A horse is a domestic animal," etc. 

Again, " What is a cloud ? What is the sun ? What 
is a river? What is justice? What is love? " One 
says, "A cloud is that from which rain falls," or "A 



164 The Science of Human Nature 

cloud is partially condensed vapor. The sun is a round 
thing in the sky that shines by day. A river is water 
flowing along in a low place through the land. Jus- 
tice is giving to people what they deserve. Love is 
that feeling one has for a person which makes him 
be kind to that person." The answer that one gives 
depends on age and experience. 

But it is evident that when a person is asked what 
a thing is or what is the meaning of a thing, he has 
at once ideas that have been most closely associated 
with the idea in question. Now, since the most im- 
portant aspect of a thing is what we can do with it, 
what use it can be to us, usually meaning centers about 
use. A chair is to sit in, bread is to eat, water is to 
drink, clothes are to wear, a hat is a thing to be worn on 
one's head, a shovel is to dig with, a car is to ride in, etc. 

Use is not quite so evident in such cases as the fol- 
lowing: "Who was CaBsar? Who was Homer? Who 
is Edison? What was the Inquisition? What were 
the Crusades ? " However, one has, in these cases, very 
closely associated ideas, and these ideas do center 
about what we have done with these men and events 
in our thinking. " Cassar was a warrior. Homer was 
a writer of epics. Edison is an inventor," etc. These 
men and events have been presented to us in various 
situations as standing for various things in the history 
of the world. And when we think of them, we at 
once think of what they did, the place they fill in the 
world. This constitutes their meaning. 

It is evident that an idea may have many meanings. 
And the meaning that may come to us at any partic- 
ular moment depends upon the situation. A chair, for 
example, in one situation, may come to mind as a 
thing to sit in ; in another situation, as a thing to stand 



Thinking 165 



in the corner and look pretty ; in another, a thing to 
stand on so that one may reach the top shelf in the 
pantry ; in another, a thing to strike a burglar with ; 
in another, a thing to knock to pieces to be used to 
make a fire. 

The meaning of a thing comes from our experience 
with it, and the thing usually comes to have more 
and more meanings as our experience with it increases. 
When we meet something new, it may have practically 
no meaning. Suppose we find a new plant in the woods. 
It has little meaning. We may be able to say only 
that it is a plant, or it is a small plant. We touch 
it and it pricks us, and it at once has more meaning. 
It is a plant that pricks. We bite into it and find it 
bitter. It is then a plant that is bitter, etc. In such 
a way, objects come to have meaning. They acquire 
meaning according to the connections in which we 
experience them and they may take on different 
meanings for different persons because of the different 
experiences of these persons. The chief interest we 
have in objects is in what use we can make of them, 
how we can make them serve our purposes, how we 
can make them contribute to our pleasure. 

The organization of experience is the connecting, 
through the process of association, of the ideas that 
arise out of our experience. Our ideas are organized 
not only in accordance with the way we experience 
them in the first place, but in accordance with the way 
we think them later in memory. Of course, ideas 
are recalled in accordance with the way we experience 
them, but since they are experienced in such a multitude 
of connections, they are recalled later in these various 
connections and it is possible in recall to repeat one 
connection to the exclusion of others. 



166 The Science of Human Nature 

Organization can therefore be a selective process. 
Although " horse '' is experienced in a great variety of 
situations or connections, for our purposes we can select 
some one or more of these connections and by repeti- 
tion in recalling it, strengthen these connections to 
the exclusion of others. Herein lies one of the greatest 
possibilities in thinking and reasoning, which enables 
us, to an extent, to be independent of original experi- 
ence. We must have had experience, of course, but 
the strength of bonds between ideas need not depend 
upon original experience, but rather upon the way 
in which these ideas are recalled later, and especially 
upon the number of times they are recalled. 

It is in the matter of the organization of experience 
that teachers and parents can be of great help to young 
people. Children do not know what connections of 
ideas will be most useful in the future. People who 
have had more experience know better and can, by 
direction and suggestion, lead the young to form, 
and strengthen by repetition, those connections of 
ideas that will be most useful later. 

In the various school studies, a mass of ideas is 
presented. These ideas, isolated or with random con- 
nections, will be of little service to the pupils. They 
must be organized with reference to future use. This 
organization must come about through thinking 
over these ideas in helpful connections. The teacher 
knows best what these helpful connections are and 
must help the pupil to make them. 

Suppose the topic studied in history is the Battle of 
Bunker Hill. The teacher should assist the child 
to think the battle over in many different connections. 
There are various geographical, historical, and literary 
aspects of the battle that are of importance. These 



i 



Thinking 167 



aspects should be brought to mind and related by being 
thought of together. Thinking things together binds 
them together as ideas; and later when one idea 
comes, the others that have been joined with it in the 
past in thought, come also. Therefore, in studying 
the Battle of Bunker Hill, the pupil not only reads 
about it, but gets a map and studies the geography 
of it, works out the causes that led up to the battle, 
studies the consequences that followed, reads speeches 
and poems that have been made and written since con- 
cerning the battle, the monument, etc. 

Similarly, all the topics studied in school should 
be thought over and organized with reference to mean- 
ing and with reference to future use. As a result 
of such procedure, all the topics become organized 
and crystallized, with all related ideas closely bound 
together in association. 

One of the greatest differences in people is in the 
organization of their ideas. Of course, people differ 
in original experience, but they differ more in the 
way they organize this experience and prepare it for 
future needs. Just as in habit-formation we should 
by exercise and practice acquire those kinds of skill 
that will serve us best in the future, so in getting knowl- 
edge we should by repetition strengthen the connections 
between those ideas that we shall need to have con- 
nected in the future. All education looks forward 
and is preparatory. As a result of training in the 
organization of ideas, a pupil can learn how to organize 
his experience, in a measure, independent of the teacher. 
He learns to know, himself, what ideas are significant, 
and what connections of ideas will be most helpful. 
Such an outcome should be one of the ends of school 
training. 



168 The Science of Human Nature 

Training in Reasoning. We have already men- 
tioned ways in which a child can be helped in gaining 
power and facility in reasoning. In this paragraph 
we shall discuss the matter more fully. There are 
three aspects of training in reasoning, one with refer- 
ence to original experience, one with reference to the 
organization of this experience as just discussed, and 
one with reference to certain habits of procedure in 
the recall and use of experience. 

(1) Original experience. Before reasoning in any 
field, one must have experience in that field. There 
is no substitute for experience. After having the 
experience, it can be organized in various ways, but 
experience there must be. Experience may be pri- 
mary, with things themselves, or it may be secondary, 
received second hand through books or through spoken 
language. We cannot think without ideas, and ideas 
come only through perceptions of one kind or another. 

Originally, all experience arises out of sensations. 
Language makes it possible for us to profit through 
the perceptual experience of others. But even when 
we receive our experience second hand, our own pri- 
mary experience must enable us to understand the 
meaning of what we read and hear about, else it is 
valueless to us. Therefore, if we wish to be able to 
reason in the field of physics, of botany, of chem- 
istry, of medicine, of law, or of agriculture, we must 
get experience in those fields. The raw material of 
thought comes only through experience. In such a 
subject as physical geography, for example, the words 
of the book have little meaning unless the child has 
had original experience in the matter discussed. He 
must have seen hills and valleys and rivers and lakes 
and rocks and weathering, and all the various processes 



Thinking 169 



discussed in physical geography; otherwise, the read- 
ing of the text is almost valueless. The same thing 
is true of all subjects. To reason in any subject we must 
have had original experience in it. 

(2) The organization of experience. After experi- 
ence comes its organization. This point has already 
been fully explained. It was pointed out that organi- 
zation consists in thinking our experience over again 
in helpful relations. Here parents and teachers can 
be of very great service to children. 

(3) Habits of thought. There are certain habits 
of procedure in reasoning, apart from the association 
of the ideas. One can form the habit of putting cer- 
tain questions to oneself when a problem is presented, 
so that certain types of relations are called up. If one 
is a scientist, one looks for causes. If one is a lawyer, 
one looks up the court decisions. If one is a physi- 
cian, one looks for symptoms, etc. 

One of the most important habits in connection with 
reasoning is the habit of caution. Reasoning is wait- 
ing, waiting for ideas to come that will be adequate 
for the situation. One must form the habit of waiting 
a reasonable length of time for associations to run 
their course. If one act too soon, before his organized 
experience has had time to pass in review, he may act 
improperly. Therefore one must be trained to a 
proper degree of caution. Of course, caution may be 
overdone. One must act sometime, one cannot wait 
always. 

Another habit is that of testing out a conclusion 
before it is finally put into practice. It is often pos- 
sible to put a conclusion to some sort of test before it 
is put to the real test, just as one makes a model 
and tries out an invention on a small scale. One should 



170 The Science of Human Nature 

not have full confidence in a conclusion that is the 
result of reasoning, till the conclusion has been put 
to the final test of experiment, of trial. 

This last statement leads us to the real function of 
reasoning. Reason points the way to action in a 
new situation. After the situation is repeated for 
a sufficient number of times, action passes into the 
realm of habit. 

Language and Thinking. The fact that man has 
spoken and written language is of the greatest signifi- 
cance. It has already been pointed out that language 
is a means through which we can get experience second- 
hand. This proves to be a great advantage to man. 
But language gives us still another advantage. With- 
out language, thinking is limited to the passing of 
sensory images that arise in accordance with the 
laws of association. But man can name things and 
the attributes of things, and these names become asso- 
ciated, so that thinking comes to be, in part at least, 
a matter of words. Thinking is talking to oneself. 
One cannot talk without language. 

The importance that attaches to language can 
hardly be overestimated. When the child acquires 
the use of language, he has acquired the use of a tool, 
the importance of which to thinking is greater than 
that of any other tool. Now, one can think without 
language, in the sense that memory images come and 
go, — we have defined thinking as the flow of imagery, 
the passing or succession of ideas. But after we have 
named things, thinking, particularly reasoning, be- 
comes largely verbal, or as we said above, talking to 
oneself. 

Not only do we give names to concrete things but 
we give names to specific attributes and to relations. 



Thinking 171 



As we organize and analyze our experiences, there 
appear uniformities, principles, laws. To these we 
give names, such as white, black, red, weight, length, 
thickness, justice, truth, sin, crime, heat, cold, mortal, 
immortal, evolution, disintegration, love, hate, envy, 
jealousy, possible, impossible, probable, etc. We 
spoke above of meanings. To meanings we give 
names, so that a single word comes to stand for mean- 
ings broad and significant, the result of much experi- 
ence. Such words as "evolution" and "gravitation," 
single words though they are, represent a wide range of 
experiences and bring these experiences together and 
crystallize them into a single expression, which we use 
as a unit in our thought. 

Language, therefore, makes thought easier and its 
accomplishment greater. After we have studied Caesar 
for some years, the name comes to represent the epit- 
ome, the bird's-eye view of a great man. A similar 
thing is true of our study of other men and movements 
and things. Single words come to represent a multi- 
tude of experiences. Then these words become asso- 
ciated and organized in accordance with the principles 
of association discussed above, so that it comes about 
that the older we are, the more we come to think in 
words, and the more these words represent. The older 
we are, the more abstract our thinking becomes, the 
more do our words come to stand for meanings and 
attributes and laws that have come out of the organi- 
zation of our experience. 

It is evident that the accuracy of our thinking 
depends upon these words standing for the truth, 
depends upon whether we have organized our experi- 
ence in accordance with facts. If our word " Caesar " 
does not stand for the real Caesar, then all our think- 



172 The Science of Human Nature 

ing in which Caesar enters will be incorrect. If our 
word " justice " does not stand for the real justice, then 
all our thinking in which justice enters will be in- 
correct. 

This discussion points to the tremendous impor- 
tance of the organization of experience. Truth is the 
agreement of our thought with the thing, with reality. 
We must therefore help the young to see the world 
clearly and to organize what they see in accordance 
with the facts and with a view to future use. Then 
the units of this organized experience are to be tagged, 
labeled, by means of words, and these words or labels 
become the vehicles of thought, and the outcome of 
the thinking depends on the validity of the organiza- 
tion of our experience. 

Summary. Thinking is the passing of ideas in the mind; its 
basis is in the association of memory ideas. The basis of asso- 
ciation is in original experience, ideas becoming bound together in 
memory as originally experienced. The factors of association 
are primacy, recency, frequency, intensity, and mental set or 
attitude. Reasoning is thinking to a purpose. We can be 
trained in reasoning by being taught to get vivid experience in 
the first place and in organizing this experience in helpful ways, 
having in mind future use. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. A series of experiments should be performed to make clear 
to the students that the basis of the association of ideas is in 
experience and not in the nature of the ideas themselves. 

(a) Let the students, starting with the same word, write down 
all the ideas that come to mind in one minute. The teacher 
should give the initial idea, as sky, hate, music, clock, table, or 
wind. The first ten ideas coming to each student might be written 
on the blackboard for study and comparison. Are any series 
alike? Is the tenth idea in one series the same as that in any 
other ? 



Thinking 173 



(6) For a study of the various factors of association, perform 
the following experiment: Let the teacher prepare a list of fifty- 
words — nouns and adjectives, such as wood, murder, goodness, 
bad, death, water, love, angel. Read the words to the class and 
let each student write down the first idea that comes to mind 
in each case. After the list is finished, let each student try to 
find out what the determining factor was in each case, whether 
primacy, frequency, recency, vividness, or mental set. When 
the study is completed, the student's paper should contain three 
columns, the first column showing the stimulus words, the second 
showing the response words, the third showing the determining 
factors. The first column should be dictated and copied after 
the response words have been written. 

(c) Study the data in (a) and (6), noting the variety of ideas 
that come to different students for the same stimulus word. It 
will be seen that they come from a great variety of experiences and 
from all parts of one's life from childhood to the present, show- 
ing that all our experiences are bound together and that we can 
go from one point to any other, directly or indirectly. 

2. Perform an experiment to determine how each member of 
the class thinks, i.e. in what kind of imagery. Let each plan a 
picnic in detail. How do they do it? Do they see it or hear it 
or seem to act it? Or does it happen in words merely? 

3. Think of the events of yesterday. How do they come to 
you? Do your images seem to be visual, auditory, motor, or 
verbal? Do you seem to have all kinds of imagery? Is one 
kind predominant? 

4. Test the class for speed of free association as described on 
page 193. Repeat the experiment at least five times and rank the 
members of the class from the results. 

5. Similarly, test speed for controlled association as described 
on page 195 and rank the members of the class. 

6. Compare the rankings in Nos. 4 and 5. 

7. The teacher can extend the controlled association tests by 
preparing lists that show different kinds of logical relations with 
one another, from genus to species, from species to genus, from 
verb to object, from subject to verb, etc. Do the students main- 
tain the same rank in the various types of experiments? Do the 
ranks in these tests correspond to the students* ranks in think- 
ing in the school subjects? 



174 The Science of Human Nature 

8. At least two series of experiments in reasoning should be 
performed, one to show the nature of reasoning and the other to 
show the ability of the members of the class. 

(a) Put several problems to the class, similar to the following : 
What happens to a wet board laid out in the sunshine? Explain. 
Suppose corn is placed in three vessels, 1, 2, and 3. Number 1 
is sealed up air tight and kept warm? Number 2 is kept open 
and warm? Number 3 is kept open and warm and moist. 
What happens in each case? Explain. 

Condensed milk does not sour as long as the can remains un- 
opened. After the can is opened, the milk sours if allowed to be- 
come warm; it does not sour if kept frozen. Why? Two bars 
of metal are riveted together. One bar is lead, the other iron. 
What happens when the bars are heated to 150 C ? 500 C ? 1000 C ? 
2000 C? Answer the following questions: Is it ever right to 
steal? To kill a person? To lie? Which are unwise and mis- 
taken. Republicans or Democrats? 

In the above, do all come to the same conclusion? Why? 
Were any unable to come to a conclusion at all on some questions ? 
Why? Do the experiments make it clear that reasoning is de- 
pendent upon experience? 

(6) Let the teacher prepare five problems in reasoning well 
within the experience of the class, and find the speed and accuracy 
of the students in solving them. Compare the results with those 
in the controlled association tests. Test the class with various 
kinds of mechanical puzzles. 

9. The students should study several people to ascertain how 
well those people have their experience organized. Is their 
experience available? Can they come to the point immediately, 
or, are they hazy, uncertain, and impractical? 

10. It is claimed that we have two types of people, theoretical and 
practical. This is to some extent true. What is the explanation? 

11. From the point of view of No. 10, compare teachers and 
engineers. 

12. If anything will work in theory, will it work in practice? 

13. From what you have learned in the chapter and from the 
experiments, write a paper on training in reasoning. 

14. What are the main defects of the schools with reference to 
training children to think? 

15. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 



Thinking 175 



REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN and Bagley : Human Behavior, Chapters XVI and XVIII. 

Dewey: How We Think, Parts I and III. 

MuNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied, Chapters VIII 

and XII ; also pp. 192-195. 
PiLLSBURY : Essentials of Psychology, Chapters VI and IX. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology, Chapter XV. 
TiTCHENER : A Beginner's Psychology, Chapters V, VI, and X. 



CHAPTER IX 
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

Physical Differences. One never sees two people 
whose bodies are exactly alike. They differ in height 
or weight or color of the skin. They differ in the color 
of the hair or eyes, in the shape of the head, or in such 
details as size and shape of the ear, size and shape of 
the nose, chin, mouth, teeth, feet, hands, fingers, toes, 
nails, etc. The anatomist tells us that we differ in- 
ternally just as we do externally. While the internal 
structure of one person has the same general plan as 
that of another, there being the same number of bones, 
muscles, organs, etc., there are always differences in 
detail. We are built on the same plan, i.e. we are 
made after a common type. We vary, above and be- 
low this type or central tendency. 

Weight may be taken for illustration. If we should 
weigh the first thousand men we meet, we should find 
light men, heavy men, and men of medium weight. 
There would be few light men, few heavy men, but many 
men of medium weight. This fact is well shown in 
diagram by what is known as a curve of distribution 
or frequency surface, which is constructed as follows : 
Draw a base line A B, and on this line mark off equal 
distances to represent the various weights. At the 
left end put the number representing the lightest men 
and at the right the number representing the heaviest 

176 



Individual Differences 



177 



men; the other weights come in between in order. 
Then select a scale ; we will say a millimeter in height 
above the base line represents one person of the weight 
represented on the base, and in drawing the upper 
part of the figure, A C B, we have but to measure up 



75- 















70- 






1 




es- 






60 - 




1 




55 - 




1 




50 - 




I 
1 


WEIGHT 


45- 
40 • 




' 










35- 


} 






30- 










25- 








20- 




! T 




15 - 












10 - 


L 






5 - 


1 




A - 


r 1 


1 


1 







i f J 1- 



80-99 100-779 120 139 140-159 160-179 180-199 200-219 220-239 240-259 

Figure V — Frequency Surface — Weight 
The solid line represents men, the broken line, women. 



one millimeter for each person weighed, of the weight 
indicated below on the base. 

A study of this frequency surface shows a tendency 
for people to be grouped about the central tendency 
or average. There are many people of average weight 
or nearly so, but few people who deviate widely from 
the average weight. If we measure people with refer- 



178 



The Science of Human Nature 



ence to any other physical characteristic, or any mental 
characteristic, we get a similar result, we find them 
grouped about an average or central tendency. 

Mental Differences. Just as we differ physically, 
so also we differ mentally, and in the various aspects 



100-^ 






















ISO- 














no - 

130- 






1 


t 






FREE 
ASSOCIATION 




1 1 






120- 






7.70- 












700- 












90- 












80- 
70- 
60- 


1 


1 




1 

1 
1 




1 










1 




50- 








1 

1 

\ 




40- 










30- 












1 




20- 








^, 


10- 




1 
1 






1 

^ I 






70 
19 


20 

29 


30 
39 


I 1 

40 
49 


50 
59 


1 

60 
69 


70 

79 


80 
89 


i 1 

90 100 
99 109 



Figure VI — Frequency Surface — Free Association 

Solid line, men; broken line, women. The numbers below the 

base represent the number of words written in the Free Association 

test, and the numbers at the left represent the number of people 

making the respective scores. 

of our behavior. The accompanying diagram (Free 
Association) shows the distribution of a large number 
of men and women with respect to the speed of their 
flow of ideas. When men and women are measured 
with respect to any mental function, a similar dis- 
tribution is found. 
An interesting question is whether our mental dif- 



Individual Differences 179 

ferences have any relation or connection with one an- 
other. If one mental characteristic is of high order, 
are all the others of high order also? Does a good 
memory indicate a high order of attention, of associa- 
tion, of imagination, of learning capacity? Experi- 
ments show that mental characteristics have at least 
some degree of independence. But the rule is that 
they generally go together, a high order of ability in 
one mental function indicating a high order of ability 
in at least some others, and a low order of ability in 
one function indicating a low order in other functions. 

However, it seems that abilities that are very much 
specialized, such as musical ability, artistic ability, etc., 
may exist in high order while other mental functions 
may be only mediocre. It is a common thing for a 
musical person to be of rather poor ability otherwise. 
To the extent that special abilities require specialized 
differences in the structure of brain, nervous system, 
or sense organ, they can exist in some degree of inde- 
pendence of other functions. Musical ability to some 
extent does require some such differences and may 
therefore be found either with a high or a low degree of 
ability in other characteristics. 

It is doubtless true that at maturity the unequal 
power of mental functions in the same person may be 
partly due to the fact that one function has been exer- 
cised and others neglected. A person having very 
strong musical tendencies is likely to have such a great 
interest in music that he will think other activities are 
not worth while, and will consequently neglect these 
other activities. It will therefore turn out that at 
maturity the great differences in mental functions in 
such a person are in part due to exercise of one function 
and neglect of others. But there can be no doubt that 



180 The Science of Human Nature 

in many cases there are large original, inherited differ- 
ences, the individual being poor in one aspect of mind 
and good in others. Feeble-minded people are usually- 
poor in all important aspects of mind. However, one 
sometimes finds a feeble-minded person having musical 
or artistic ability, and often such a person has a good 
rote memory, sometimes a good verbal memory. 
However, the so-called higher mental functions — 
logical memory, controlled association, and construc- 
tive imagination — are all poor in a feeble-minded 
person. 

Each mental function may be looked upon as in 
some measure independent; each is found existing in 
people in varying degrees from zero ability up to what 
might be called genius ability. The frequency curves 
in Fig. VI show this. Take rote memory for example. 
Idiots are found with practically zero ability in rote 
memory. At the other extreme, we find mathematical 
prodigies who, after watching a long freight train pass 
and noting the numbers of the cars, can repeat correctly 
the number of each car. Rote memory abilities can 
be found representing every step between these two 
extremes. This principle of distribution holds true 
in the case of all mental functions. We find persons 
practically without them, and others possessing them 
in the highest order, but most people are grouped 
about the average ability. 

Detecting Mental Differences. It has already been 
said that mind has many different aspects and that 
people differ with respect to these aspects. Now let 
us ask how we can measure the degree of development 
of these aspects or functions of mind. We measure 
them just as we measured muscular speed as described 
in the first chapter. Each mental function means 



Individual Differences 181 

ability to do something — to learn, to remember, to 
form images, to reason, etc. To measure these differ- 
ent capacities or functions we have but to require 
that the person under consideration do something, as 
learn, remember, etc., and measure how well and how 
fast he does it, just as we would measure how far he 
can jump, how fast he can run, etc. 

In such measurements, the question of practice is 
always involved. If we measure running ability, we 
find that some are in practice while others are not. 
Those in practice can run at very nearly their ultimate 
capacity. Those who are not in practice can be 
trained to run much faster than they do. To get a 
true measure of running capacity, we should practice 
the persons to be measured till each runs up to the 
limit of his capacity, and then measure each one's 
speed. The same thing is true, to some extent, when 
we come to measure mental functions proper. How- 
ever, the life that children live gives exercise to all 
fundamental functions of the mind, and unless some 
of the children tested have had experience which would 
tend to develop some mental functions in a special way, 
tests of the various aspects of learning capacity, 
memory, association, imagination, etc., are a fairly 
good measure of original, inherited tendencies. 

Of course, it must be admitted that there are meas- 
urable differences in the influence of environment on 
children, and when these differences are extreme, no 
doubt the influence is shown in the development of the 
child's mind. A child reared in a home where all the 
influences favor its mental development, ought to show 
a measurable difference in such development when com- 
pared with a child reared in a home where all the in- 
fluences are unfavorable. It is difficult to know to 



182 The Science of Human Nature 

what extent this is true, for the hereditary and environ- 
mental influences are usually in harmony, the child of 
good hereditary stock having good environmental in- 
fluences, and vice versa. When this is not the case, 
i.e. when a child of good stock is reared under poor 
environmental influences, or when a child of poor 
stock is reared under good influences, the results seem 
to show that the differences in environment have little 
effect on mental development, as far as the funda- 
mental functions are concerned, except in the most 
extreme cases. 

Each mental function is capable of some develop- 
ment. It can be brought up to the limit of its possi- 
bilities. But recent experiments indicate that such 
development is not very great in the case of the ele- 
mentary, fundamental functions. Training, however, 
has a much greater effect on complex mental activities 
that involve several functions. Rote memory is 
rather simple ; it cannot be much affected by training. 
The memory for ideas is more complex ; it can be con- 
siderably affected by training. The original and fun- 
damental functions of the mind depend upon the nature 
of the nervous system which is bequeathed to us by 
heredity. This cannot be much changed. However, 
training has considerable effect on the coordinations 
and combinations of mental functions. Therefore, the 
more complex the mental activities which we are test- 
ing, the more likely they are to have been affected by 
differences in experience and training. 

If we should designate the logical memory capacity 
of one person by 10, and that of another by 15, by prac- 
tice we might bring the first up to 15 and the second 
to 22i, but we could not equalize them. We could 
never make the memory of the one equal to that of 



Individual Differences 183 

the other. In an extreme case, we might find one child 
whose experience had been such that his logical memory 
was working up to the limit of its capacity, while the 
other had had little practice in logical memory and 
was therefore far below his real capacity. In such a 
case, a test would not show the native difference, it 
would show only the present difference in functioning 
capacity. 

Fairly adequate tests for the most important mental 
functions have been worked out. A series of group 
tests with directions and norms follow. The members 
of the class can use these tests in studying the individual 
differences in other people. The teacher will find 
other tests in the author's Examination of School Chil- 
dren, and in Whipple's Manual of Mental and Physical 
Tests, 

MENTAL TESTS 

General Directions 

The results of the mental tests in the school will be 
worse than useless unless the tests are given with the 
greatest care and scientific precision. Every test should 
be most carefully explained to the children so that 
they will know exactly what they are to do. The matter 
must be so presented to them that they will put forth 
all possible effort. They must take the tests seriously. 
Great care must be taken to see that there is no cheat- 
ing. The work of each child should be his own work. 
In those tests in which time is an important element, 
the time must be carefully kept, with a stop watch if one 
is available. The papers should be distributed for the 
tests and turned face downward on the pupil's desk. 
The pupil, when all are ready to begin, should take the 



184 The Science of Human Nature 



paper in his hand and at the signal " begin " turn it 
over and begin work, and when the signal '' stop " is 
given, should quit work instantly and turn the paper 

over. Before the work 
begins, the necessary 
information should be 
placed on each paper. 
This information 
should be the pupil's 
name, age, grade, sex, 
and school. This 
should be on every 
paper. When the 
test is over the papers 
should be immedi- 
ately collected. 

Logical Memory 

Object. The pur- 
pose of this test is to 
determine the pupil's 
facility in remember- 
ing and reproducing 
ideas. A pupil's 
standing in the test 
may serve as an in- 
dication of his abil- 
ity to remember the 
subject matter of the school studies. 

Method. The procedure in this test is for the 
teacher to read slowly and distinctly the story to be 
reproduced. Immediately after the reading the pupils 
are to write down all of the story that they can recall. 



Agt 


8 


9 


I 
10 


11 


12 


29 


29 


Girls 
.6 31 


Norms 
.9 34 


.2 34 


.4 34.4 


34 






1 


" 




33 






1 
1 
1 






32 






1 

/ 
/ 

/ 


/ 






31 




iy 


/ 


/ 




30 




1 

/ 


/• 






29 


y'' 


7 








28 




/ 








27 


/ 


/ 








26 


/ 

.6 27 


Boys 
.5 29 


Norms 
.9 31 


.7 32 


.6 32.6 



Figure VII — Logical Memory 
"Willie Jones" 



Individual Differences 185 

They must not begin to write till after the reading. 
Ten minutes should be allowed for the reproduction. 
This is ample time, and each pupil should be told to 
use the whole time in working on his reproduction. 
At the end of ten minutes, collect the papers. Care 
should be taken to see that each pupil does his own 
work, that there is no copying. Before reading the 
story, the teacher should give the following instruc- 
tions : 

I shall read to you a story entitled "Willie Jones and His Dog" 
(or "A Farmer's Son," or " A Costly Temper," as the case may be). 
After I have read the story you are to write down all you can re- 
member of it. You are not to use the exact words that I read 
unless you wish. You are to use your own words. Try to recall 
as much as possible and write all you recall. Try to get all the 
details, not merely the main facts. 

Material. For grades three, four, and five, use 
"Willie Jones and His Dog"; for grades six, seven, 
and eight, use " A Farmer's Son " ; for the high school, 
use " A Costly Temper." The norms for the latter are 
based on eighth grade and high school pupils. 



WILLIE JONES AND HIS DOG 

Willie I Jones | was a little | boy | only | five years 
old. I He had a dog | whose name was Buster. | Bus- 
ter was a large | dog | with long, | black, | curly | hair. | 
His fore | feet | and the tip | of his tail | were white. | 
One day | Willie's mother | sent him | to the store | 
which was only | a short | distance away. | Buster 
went with him, | following behind. | As Buster was 
turning | at the corner, | a car | struck him | and 
broke | one | hind | leg | and hurt | one | eye. | Willie was 
I very | sorry I and cried | a long | time. | Willie's 



186 The Science of Human Nature 

father | came | and carried | the poor | dog | home. | 
The broken leg | got well | in five | weeks | but the eye j 
that was hurt | became blind. | 

A FARMER'S SON 

Will I was a farmer's | son | who attended school | in 
town. I His clothes | were poor and his boots | often 
smelled | of the farmyard | although he took great | care 
of them. I Since Will had not gone to school | as much | 
as his classmates, | he was often | at a disadvantage, | 
although his mind | was as good | as theirs, — | in fact, 
he was brighter | than most | of them. | James, | the 
wit I of the class, | never lost an opportunity | to ridi- 
cule I WilFs mistakes, 1 his bright | red | hair, | and his 
patched | clothes. | Will | took the ridicule | in good 
part I and never | lost his temper. | One Saturday | as 
Will I was driving | his cows | to pasture, | he met 
James | teasing | a young | child, | a cripple. | Will's | 
indignation | was aroused | by the sight. | He asked | the 
bully I to stop, I but when he would not, | Will pounced | 
upon him | and gave him | a good | beating, | and he 
would not I let James go | until he promised | not to 
tease | the crippled | child | again. | 

A COSTLY TEMPER 

A man | named John | Murdock | had a servant | who 
worried him | much by his stupidity. | One day | when 
this servant was more | stupid | than usual, | the angry | 
master | of the house | threw a book | at his head. | 
The servant | ducked | and the book flew | out of the 
window. I 

" Now go I and pick that book up ! " | ordered the 



Individual Differences 187 

master. | The servant | started | to obey, | but a 
passerby | had saved him | the trouble, | and had walked 
off I with the book. | The scientist | thereupon | began 
to wonder | what book | he had thrown away, | and to 
his horror, | discovered | that it was a quaint | and rare | 
little I volume | of poems, | which he had purchased | 
in London | for fifty | dollars. | 

But his troubles | were not over. | The weeks went 
by I and the man had almost | forgotten his loss, | when, 
strolling | into a secondhand | bookshop, | he saw, | to 
his great delight, | a copy of the book | he had lost. | 
He asked the price. | 

" Well," I said the dealer, | reflectively, | " I guess we 
can let you have it | for forty | dollars. | It is a very | 
rare book, | and I am sure | that I could get seventy- 
five I dollars for it | by holding on a while.'' | 

The man of science | pulled out his purse | and pro- 
duced the money, | delighted at the opportunity of re- 
placing I his lost I treasure. | When he reached home, | 
a card | dropped out | of the leaves. | The card was 
his own, I and further | examination | showed that he 
had bought back | his own property. | 

" Forty dollars' | worth of temper," | exclaimed the 
man. | ''I think I shall mend my ways." | His disposi- 
tion I afterward | became so | good | that | the servant 
became worried, | thinking the man | must be ill. | 

The Results. The material for the test is divided 
into units as indicated by the vertical lines. The 
pupil's written reproduction should be compared unit 
by unit with the story as printed, and given one credit for 
each unit adequately reproduced. The norms for the 
three tests are shown in the accompanying Figures VII, 
VIII, and IX. In these and all the graphs which follow, 



188 



The Science of Human Nature 



the actual ages are shown in the first horizontal column. 
The norms for girls appear in the second horizontal 
column, the norms for boys in the column at the 

bottom. By the norm 
for an age is meant 
the average perform- 
ance of all the pupils 
of that age examined. 
Age ten applies to 
those pupils who have 
passed their tenth 
birthday and have 
not reached their 
eleventh birthday, 
and the other ages 
are to be similarly 
interpreted. The 
vertical lines in the 
graphs indicate birth- 
days and the scores 
written on these lines 
indicate ability at 
these exact ages. 
The column marked 
ten, for example, in- 
cludes all the children 
that are over ten and 
The graphs show the development 
In general, it will be noticed, there 



Age 


11 


12 


n 

75 


14 


15 


33 


33 


Girls 
.5 34 


Norms 
.5 35 


.7 35 


.6 38.5 


38 










1 


37 










1 
1 
1 
1 


36 










1 
1 

1 
1 / 


35 








J^>- 


/ 


34 




/ 




"ioys^ 




33 


-'< 


• > 








32 












32 


.3 33 


Boys 

.2 33 


Norms 

.9 34 


.8 35 


36.3 



Figure VIII — Logical Memory — 
"A Farmer's Son" 



not yet eleven, 
from age to age 
is an improvement of memory with age, but in the high 
school, in the " Costly Temper " test, there is a decline. 
This may not indicate a real decline in ability to re- 
member ideas, but a change in attitude. The high 
school pupil probably acquires a habit of remembering 



Individual Differences 



189 



only significant facts. His memory is selective, while 
in the earlier ages, the memory may be more parrot- 
like, one idea being reproduced with about as much 
fidelity as another. This statement is made not as a 
Jacty but as a probable explanation. 

Rote Memory 

Object. The object of the rote memory tests is to 
determine the pupil's memory span for unrelated im- 



Age 


12 


13 


14 


m 

15 


16 


17 


18 


49 


.1 49 


.1 49 


.6 50 


Qirls 
48 


Norms 

.7 47 


.6 47 


.8 


50 




\ 














49 




\ 


^"""^ 


\ 








48 






\ 




\ 






47 






\ 


"^^ 












46 










\ 






45 










\ 










50 


.6 50 


.6 48 


.9 47 


Boys 
.6 47 


Norms 
.4 45 


.1 45 


.1 



Figure IX — Logical Memory — "A Costly Temper' 



pressions — words that have no logical relations with 
one another. Much school work makes demands upon 
this ability. Therefore, the tests are of importance. 



190 The Science of Human Nature 

Method. There are two lists of words, concrete and 
abstract, with six groups in each list. The list of con- 
crete words should be given first, then the abstract. 
The procedure is to pronounce the first group, cat, tree, 
coat, and then pause for the pupils to write these three 
words. Then pronounce the next group, mule, bird, 



Age 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


22 


.2 22 




.6 24 


.8 26 


26 


Girls 
.8 27 


Norms 
.3 27 


.3 28 


.1 28 


7 28 


.7 


28 


















y" 

X 










27 












^"^ 





/ 




^ 






26 










f 


^^._. 








^ 




25 








} 


-^ 














24 






/ 


y 
















23 




/ 


'/ 


















22 


^ 


f 




















22 


.2 22 


6 23 


.5 24 


.7 25 


.6 26 


Boys 

26 


Norms 
.3 26 


.2 26 


.4 26 


.8 27 


.4 



Figure X — Concrete Kote Memory 



cart, glass, and pause for the reproduction, and so on 
through the list. 

Give the following instructions : 

We wish to see how well you can remember words. I shall 
pronounce first a group of three words. After I have pronounced 
them, you are to write them down. I shall then pronounce a 
group of four words, then one of five words, and so continue with 
a longer group each time. You must pay very close attention 



Individual Differences 



191 



for I shall pronounce a group but once. You are not required to 
write the words in their order, but just as you recall them. 



Material. The words for 
following lists: 
Concrete 

1. cat, tree, coat 1 

2. mule, bird, cart, glass 2 

3. star, horse, dress, fence, man 

4. fish, sun, head, door, shoe, 

block 

5. train, mill, box, desk, oil, 

pup, bill 

6. floor, car, pipe, bridge, hand, 6 

dirt, cow, crank 



the test are given in the 



Ahstra4:t 
good, black, fast 
. clean, tall, round, hot 
. long, wet, fierce, white, cold 
. deep, soft, quick, dark, great, 

dead 
. sad, strong, hard, bright, 
fine, glad, plain 
sharp, late, sour, wide, rough, 
thick, red, tight 



Age 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


73 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


20 


.2 21 


A 21 


.9 23 


24 


.7 25 


Qirls 
6 26 


Norms 
.1 26 


26 


.8 27 


.5 28 




27 


















y 








26 
















./■ 




/ 




25 












^' 






/ 






24 








I 


/ 




^ 










23 










^^ 














22 






// 
// 


/ 
















21 


/ 


-"/ 


/ 


















20 


/ 
f 
/ 


/ 




















19 


.6 19 


.7 21 


.7 22 


.8 23 


.7 24 


Boys 
.1 24 


Norms 
.5 25 


25 


.5 26 


A 27 


A 



Figure XI — Abstract Rote Memory 



192 The Science of Human Nature 

Results. The papers are graded by determining the 
number of concrete words and the number of abstract 
words that are reproduced. No account is taken of 
whether the words are in the right position or not. A 
perfect score in each test would therefore be thirty- 
three. The norms are shown in Figures X and XL 

The Substitution Test 

Object. This test determines one's ability to build 
up new associations. It is a test of quickness of 
learning. 

Method. The substitution test-sheets are distrib- 
uted to the pupils and turned face down on the desks. 
The teacher gives the following instructions : 

We wish to see how fast you can learn. At the top of the sheet 
which has been distributed to you there is a key. In nine circles 
are written the nine digits and for each digit there is written a 
letter which is to be used instead of the digit. Below the key are 
two columns of numbers; each number contains five digits. In 
the five squares which follow the number you are to write the let- 
ters which correspond to the digits. Work as fast as you can and 
fill as many of the squares as you can without making mistakes. 
When I say "stop," quit work instantly and turn the paper over. 

Before beginning the test the teacher should explain 
on the blackboard the exact nature of the test. This 
can be done by using other letters instead of those 
used in the key. Make sure that the pupils under- 
stand what they are to do. Allow eight minutes in 
grades three, four, and five, and five minutes above 
the fifth grade. 

Material. For material, use the substitution test- 
sheets. This and the other test material can be ob- 
tained from the University of Missouri, Extension 
Division. 



Individual Differences 



193 



Results. In grading the work, count each square 
correctly filled in as one point, and reduce the score to 
speed per minute by dividing by eight in grades three, 
four, and five, and by five in the grades above. 

The norms are shown in Figure XI I. 



Age 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


13 


.23 14, 


,71 n 


.27 19- 


.69 21 


Qiria 
.49 22 


Norms 
.98 25 


.1 27 


.2 28 


.4 28 


.5 


27.5 
















^' 










25. 






















22.5 












f 


/ 


^ 






20. 










y 


f 


y^ 








/7.5 












/ 










15. 




/ 


/ 


^ 














12.5 


„-'"■ 


y 


















10. 


y 




















10 


,93 12 


.7 74 


.5 16 


.55 17 


Boys 
.7 18 


Norms 
.25 22 


.1 23 


.78 25 


08 25 


.73 



Figure XII — Substitution Test 

Free Association 

Object. This test determines the speed of the free 
flow of ideas. The result of the test is a criterion of the 
quickness of the flow of ideas when no restriction or 
limitation is put on this flow. 

Method. The procedure in this test is to give the 



194 The Science of Human Nature 



pupils a word, and tell them to write this word down 
and all the other words that come into their minds. 
Make it clear to them that they are to write whatever 
word comes to mind, whether it has any relation to the 



Age 7 



10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 



18 







FREE 


ASSOC 


'A TION 








































22 24. 


2 25. 


6 29 


35 


40. 


3 43 


Qirls 


1 48. 


6 49. 


4 48. 


5 48. 


2 


46. 


























y 


















.»-■ 


g;!?- 


y 


y 
















/ 


^ 


|0^ 


/ 


















y 


y 


















y 


/ 


y 
















X-'" 


y 


y 




















^ 


y 






















18 19. 


8 23. 


3 26. 


9 30. 


8 34. 


7 38 


Boys 


9 44. 


6 49. 


8 48. 


1 48 




39. 



Figure XIII — Free Association Test 



word that is given them or not. Start them with the 
word " cloud." Give the following instructions : 

I wish to see how many words you can think of and write 
down in three minutes. I shall name a word, you may write it 
down and then all the other words that come into your minds. 
Do not write sentences, merely the words that come into your 
minds. Work as fast as you can. 

Results. Score the work by counting the number 
of words that have been written. The norms are 
shown in Figure XIII. 



Individual Differences 



195 



Opposites 

Object. This is a test of controlled association. It 
tests one aspect of the association of ideas. All think- 
ing is a matter of association of ideas. Reasoning is 
controlled association. The test may therefore be 
taken as a measure of speed in reasoning. 



Age 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


VIII 

73 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


9 


Qirls 
.2 9 


Norms 
.7 10 


List I 

.5 11 


.6 12 


.6 




















8 


.6 9 


8 11 


.1 12 


Qirls 
.5 13 


Norms 
.9 14 


List U 
.8 15 


.6 16 


.6 


18 
























16 




















''' 






U 
















..-" 


-'-'" 






12 












^f 




^ 


""^ 






10 




..'-' 


-;> 


•''' 


.'-'. 


^y 


y' 












8 


'^ 




/^ 


^ 


>^ 














8 


Boys 
.2 8 


Norms 
.5 9 


List! 
.6 10 


.7 10 


.7 




















8 


.2 9 


.4 10 


.2 11 


Boys 

12 


Norms 
.2 13 


ListE 
.6 14 


14 


.2 



Figure XIV — Opposites Test — Lists I and II 



Method. Distribute the lists of opposites to the 
pupils and turn them face down on the desks. Use 
List One in grades three, four, and five, and List Two 
in grades above. Allow two minutes in grades three, 
four, and five and one minute in grades above. Give 
the following instructions : 



196 



The Science of Human Nature 



On the sheets that have been distributed to you are fifty words. 
After each word you are to write a word that has the opposite 
meaning. For example, if one word were "far," you could write 
"near." Work as fast as you can, and when I say "stop" quit 
work instantly and turn your paper over. 

Results. The score is the number of opposites cor- 
rectly written. The norms are shown in Figure XIV. 



OPPOSITES — LIST NO. 1 



1. good 


18. 


up 


35. 


before 


2. big 


19. 


thick 


36. 


winter 


3. rich 


20. 


quick 


37. 


ripe 


4. out 


21. 


pretty 


38. 


night 


5. sick 


22. 


heavy 


39. 


open 


6. hot 


23. 


late 


40. 


first 


7. long 


24. 


wrong 


41. 


over 


8. wet 


25. 


smooth 


42. 


love 


9. yes 


26. 


strong 


43. 


come 


10. high 


27. 


dark 


44. 


east 


11. hard 


28. 


dead 


45. 


top 


12. sweet 


29. 


wide 


46. 


wise 


13. clean 


30. 


empty 


47. 


front 


14. sharp 


31. 


above 


48. 


girl 


15. fast 


32. 


north 


49. 


sad 


16. black 


33. 


laugh 


50. 


fat 


17. old 


34. 
OPPOSITES 


man 
-LIST NO. 2 






1. strong 


11. 


dark 


21. 


black 


2. deep 


12. 


rough 


22. 


good 


3. lazy 


13. 


pretty 


23. 


fast 


4. seldom 


14. 


high 


24. 


clean 


5. thin 


15. 


foolish 


25. 


tall 


6. soft 


16. 


present 


26. 


hot 


7. many 


17. 


glad 


27. 


long 


8. valuable 


18. 


strange 


28. 


wet 


9. gloomy 


19. 


wrong 


29. 


fierce 


10. rude 


20. 


quickly 


30. 


great 



1 



Individual Differences 



197 



31. dead 


38. late 


45. friend 


32. cloudy 


39. sour 


46. above 


33. hard 


40. wide 


47. loud 


34. bright 


41. drunk 


48. war 


35. fine 


42. tight 


49. in 


36. plain 


43. empty 


50. yes 


37. sharp 


44. sick 





The Word-Building Test 

Object. This is a test of a certain type of inventive- 
ness, namely linguistic invention. Specifically, it tests 
the pupil's ability to construct words using certain pre- 
scribed letters. 



Age 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


7 


.6 8 


A 9 


.3 10 


.5 12 


.1 13 


Qirls 
.5 74 


Norms 
.3 14 


.9 14 


.7 15 


.5 15 


.9 


75 




















^^^' 




74 












y 


fP' 


~~*^' 


'' 


y 






73 










/ 


• 
^ 




^•fo^ 


— 


iT 




72 










/ 
/ 


y 












77 










y 














10 








■/ 
















9 






■/ 


















8 


y 


/ 


/ 


















7 


.5 7 


.9 8 


.5 W 


.2 T1 


.6 12 


Boys 
.2 13 


Norms 
13 


.3 13 


.6 P3 


.9 H 


.5 



Figure XV — Word-Building Test 



198 The Science of Human Nature 

Method. The pupils are given the letters, a, e, o, m, 
n, r, and told to make as many words as possible using 
only these letters. Give the following instructions : 

I wish to see how many words you can make in five minutes, 
using only the letters which I give you. The words must be real 
English words. You must use only the letters which I give you 
and must not use the same letter more than once in the same word. 
You do not, of course, have to use all the letters in the same word. 
A word may contain one or more letters up to six. 

Material. The pupils need only sheets of blank 
paper. 

Results. The score is the number of words that do 
not violate the rules of the test as given in the instruc- 
tions. The norms are shown in Figure XV. 



The Completion Test 

Object. This is, to some extent, a test of reasoning 
capacity. Of course, it is only one particular aspect 
of reasoning. The pupil is given a story that has cer- 
tain words omitted. He must read the story, see what 
it is trying to say, and determine what words, put into 
the blanks, will make the correct sense. The meaning 
of the word written in a particular blank must not 
only make the sentence read sensibly but must fit into 
the story as a whole. Filling in the blanks in this way 
demands considerable thought. 

Method. Distribute the test-sheets and turn them 
face down on the desks. Allow ten minutes in all the 
tests. Give the following instructions : 

On the sheets which have been distributed is printed a story 
which has certain words omitted. You are to put in the blanks 
the words that are omitted. The words which you write in must 
give the proper meaning so that the story reads correctly. Each 



Individual Differences 



199 



word filled in must not 
only give the proper 
meaning to the sentence 
but to the story as a 
whole. 

Material. Use the 
completion test- 
sheets, " Joe and the 
Fourth of July/' for 
grades three, four, and 
five; "The Trout" 
for grades, six, seven, 
and eight ; and " Dr. 
Goldsmith's Medi- 
cine " for the high 
school. 

Results. In scor- 
ing the papers, allow 
one credit for each 
blank correctly filled. 
The norms are shown in Figures XVI, XVII, and 
XVIII. It will be noticed that the boys excel in the 
'* Trout " story. This is doubtless because the story 
is better suited to them on the ground of their expe- 
rience and interest. 

JOE AND THE FOURTH OF JULY 

Joe ran ^ errands for his mother and took care of the 
hahy until by the Fourth of July his penny grew to 
be a dime. The day before the Fourth, he went down 
town all by himself to get his fire works. There were 
so many kinds he hardly knew which to buy. The clerk 
knew that it takes a long time to decide, for he had 



Age 


8 


9 


X 
10 


11 


12 


12 


.1 13 


Girls 
.2 14 


Norms 
.3 14 


.8 14 


8 


14 




/ 










13 




/ 


^ 


_^ 




12 


/ 


/ 


^ 






11 


^^ 


A 








10 


^^ 










10 


.9 11 


Boys 
.2 12 


Norms 
.7 13 


.2 13 


.4 



Figure XVI — Completion Test — 
"Joe and the Fourth of July" 



The italicized words and letters are left blank in the test sheets. 



200 



The Science of Human Nature 



been a hoy himself not very long ago. So he helped 
Joe to select the very best kinds. " When are you 
going to fire them off? " asked the clerk. " I will fire 

them very early to- 
morrow," said the 
boy. So that night 
Joe set the alarm 
clock, and the next 
morning got up early 
to fire his firecrackers. 

THE TROUT 

The trout is a fine 
fish. Once a big 
trout lived in a pool 
close by a spring. He 
used to stay under 
the bank with only 
his head showing. 
His wide-open eyes 
shone like jewels. I 
tried to catch him. I 
would creep up to the 
edge of the pool where 
I could see his bright eyes looking up. 

I caught a grasshopper and threw it over to him. 
Then there was a splash in the water and the grass- 
hopper was gone. I did this two or three times. Each 
time I saw the rush and splash and saw the bait had 
been taken. 

So I put the same bait on my hook and threw it over 
into the water. But all was silent. The fish was an 
old one and had grown very wise. I did this day after 



Jige 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


A 15 


Girls 
.5 16 


Norms 
.5 17 


.9 19 


19.7 


20 








/ 


^ 


19 








/ 


y 


18 






j/ 






17 




/ 


/ / 
/ 
/ 
/ 
/ 






16 


^ 




/ 






15 




/ 








16 


A 16 


Boys 
.8 17 


Norms 
.6 19 


20 


.3 20.6 



Figure XVII — Completion Test- 
"The Trout" 



Individual Differences 201 

day with the same luck. The trout knew there was a 
hook hidden in the bait. 



DOCTOR GOLDSMITH'S MEDICINE 

This is a story of good medicine. Most medicine is 
bad to take, but this was so good that the sick man 
wished for more. 

One day a poor wom.Bii[went to Doctor Goldsmith 
and asked him to go to see her sick husband. " He 
is very sick," she said, " and I can not get him to 
eat anything." 

So Doctor Goldsmith went to see him. The doctor 
saw at once that the reason why the man could not eat 
was because he was so poor that he had not been able to 
buy good food. 

Then he said to the woman, " Come to my house this 
evening and I will give you some medicine for your 
husband.'' 

The woman went in the evening and the doctor gave 
her a small paper box tied up tight. " /i is very heavy," 
she said. " May I see what it looks Zi^e.^^ " "No," 
said the doctor, " wait until you get home/' When she 
gfo^ home, and she and her husband opened the box so 
that he could take the first dose of medicine, — what 
do you think they saw? The box was filled with silver 
money. This was the good doctor's medicine. 

Importance of Mental Differences. (1) In school 
work. One of the important results that come from a 
knowledge of the mental differences in children is that 
we are able to classify them better. When a child 
enters school he should be allowed to proceed through 
the course as fast as his development warrants. Some 



202 



The Science of Human Nature 



children can do an eight-year course in six years ; others 
require ten years; still others can never do it. The 
great majority, of course, can do it in eight years. 



Aoe 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16- 


17 


18 


41' 


.1 41 


.6 42 


.6 42, 


Girls 

.7 42 


Norma 
.9 43 


.5 44 


.6 


44 












/ 




43 










^ 


/ 




42 




/ 


Qir]s,. 











41 


^*»'' 


/ 












40 












/ 




39 










/ 






38 


"""^ 






■^ 








39 


38 


.7 38 


.6 38 


Boys 
.4. 38 


Norms 
.9 39 


.9 41 





Figure XVIII — Completion Test — " Dr. Goldsmith's 
Medicine " 

Norms for adults, as obtained from university students, are: 

Test Men Women 

Substitution Test 29.1 32.2 

Rote Memory, Concrete 28.5 28.6 

Rote Memory, Abstract 28.4 27.9 

Free Association 51.5 49.3 

Completion, Dr. Goldsmith's Medicine 48.1 49.0 

Word Building 20.5 20.1 

Logical Memory, Costly Temper 64.0 69.6 



Individual Differences 



203 



It may be thought that a child's success in school 
branches is a sufficient measure of his ability and that 
no special mental measurements are needed. This is 
a mistake. Many factors contribute to success in 
school work. Ability is only one of these factors, and 



34- 








32- 








30- 






^y'''\ 


28- 






1 \ A 


26- 
24- 




1 \ 


rA \ 






/ ^ A 




22- 
20- 


r 
/ 


/ • A 


1 1 \ * 




1 




h \ \ 


18- 


/ 




\ h \ \ 




/ 




\ // \!^ 


16- 


/ J 

1 / 






14- 
12- 


1 1 
1 1 
1 / 




\\ // HIGH \ 


1 1 
1 1 


4th GRADE 


\\ // SCHOOL \ 


10- 
8- 


1 1 

I 






6- 


11 
II 
If 
11 






4- 


Ij 


/ 


V ^ X \ 






// 




2- 


, 


y 


\ 1 1 1 1 1 1 r 



7 tf 9 

Figure XIX 



10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 

Frequency Surfaces — Comparing Fourth 
Grade with High School 

The numbers along the base represent mental age ; those at the 
left, the number of pupils of the respective ages. 

should be specially and independently determined by 
suitable tests. Children may fail in school branches 
because of being poorly started or started at the wrong 
time, because of poor teaching, sickness, moving from 
one school to another, etc. On the other hand, children 
of poor ability may succeed at school because of much 
help at home. Therefore special mental tests will help 



204 The Science of Human Nature 

in determining to what extent original mental ability is 
a factor in the success or failure of the different pupils. 

As far as possible,, the children of the same grade 
should have about the same ability ; but such is seldom 
the case. In a recent psychological study of a school 
system, the author found wide differences in ability in 
the same grade. The distribution of abilities found in 
the fourth grade and in the high school are shown in 
Figure XIX. It will be seen that in the fourth grade 
pupils are found with ability equal to that of some in 
the high school. Of course to some extent such a con- 
dition is unavoidable, for a pupil must establish certain 
habits and acquire certain knowledge before passing 
from one grade to another. However, much of the 
wide variation in ability now found in the same grade 
of a school could be avoided if the teacher had accu- 
rate knowledge of the pupils' abilities. When a teacher 
learns that a child who is doing poorly in school really 
has ability, she is often able to get from that pupil the 
work of which he is capable. It has been demonstrated 
by experience that accurate measures of children's abili- 
ties are a great help in gradation and classification. 

A knowledge of mental differences is also an aid in 
the actual teaching of the children. The instance 
mentioned at the close of the last paragraph is an ex- 
ample. A knowledge of the differences among the 
mental functions of the same pupil is especially helpful. 
It has been pointed out that the different mental func- 
tions, in the same pupil are sometimes unequally de- 
veloped. Sometimes considerable differences exist in 
the same pupil with respect to learning capacity, the 
different aspects of memory, association, imagination, 
and attention. When a teacher knows of these differ- 
ences, she can better direct the work of the pupils. 



Individual Differences 205 

For example, if a pupil have a very poor memory, 
the teacher can help him by aiding him to secure the 
advantage that comes from close and concentrated 
attention, frequent repetitions, logical organization, 
etc. On the other hand, she can help the brilliant stu- 
dent by preventing him from being satisfied with hastily 
secured, superficial knowledge, and by encouraging him 
to make proper use of his unusual powers in going 
deeper and more extensively into the school subjects 
than is possible for the ordinary student. In many 
ways a teacher can be helpful to her pupils if she has 
an accurate knowledge of their mental abilities. 

(2) In life occupations. Extreme variations in ability 
should certainly be considered in choosing one's life 
work. Only persons of the highest ability should go 
into science, law, medicine, or teaching. Many occu- 
pations demand special kinds of ability, special types 
of reaction, of attention, imagination, etc. For ex- 
ample, the operation of a telephone exchange demands 
a person of quick and steady reaction. The work of a 
motorman on a street car demands a person having the 
broad type of attention, the type of attention that en- 
ables one to keep in mind many details at the same 
time. Scientific work demands the type of concen- 
trated attention. As far as it is possible, occupations 
demanding special types of ability should be filled by 
people possessing these abilities. It is best for all con- 
cerned if each person is doing what he can do best. 
It is true that many occupations do not call for special 
types of ability. And therefore, as far as ability is 
concerned, a person could do as well in one of these 
occupations as in another. The time will sometime 
come when we shall know the special abilities demanded 
by the different occupations and professions, and by 



206 The Science of Human Nature 

suitable tests shall be able to determine what people 
possess the required qualifications. 

The schools should always be on the lookout for un- 
usual ability. Children that are far superior to others 
of the same age should be allowed to advance as fast 
as their superior ability makes possible, and should 
be held up to a high order of work. Such superior 
people should be, as far as possible, in the same classes, 
so that they can the more easily be given the kind and 
amount of work that they need. The schools should 
find the children of unusual special ability, such as 
ability in drawing, painting, singing, playing musical 
instruments, mechanical invention, etc. Some provi- 
sion should be made for the proper development and 
training of these unusual abilities. Society cannot 
afford to lose any spark of genius wherever found. 
Moreover, the individual will be happier if developed 
and trained along the line of his special ability. 

Subnormal Children. A small percentage of children 
are of such low mentality that they cannot do the 
ordinary school work. As soon as such children can 
be picked out with certainty, they should be taken out 
of the regular classes and put into special classes. It 
is a mistake to try to get them to do the regular school 
work. They cannot do it, and they only waste the 
teacher's time and usually give her much trouble. 
Besides, they waste their own time; for while they 
cannot do the ordinary school work, they can do other 
things, perhaps work of a manual nature. The educa- 
tion of such people should, therefore, be in the direc- 
tion of simple manual occupations. 

For detecting such children, in addition to the tests 
given above, elaborate tests for individual examination 
have been devised. The most widely used is a series 



Individual Differences 207 

known as the Binet-Simon tests. A special group of 
tests is provided for the children of each age. If a 
child can pass the tests for his age, he is considered 
normal. If he can pass only the tests three years or 
more below his age, he is usually considered subnormal. 
But a child's fate should not depend solely upon any 
number or any kind of tests. We should always give 
the child a trial and see what he is able to achieve. 
This trial should cover as many months or years as are 
necessary to determine beyond doubt the child's mental 
status. 

Summary. Just as we differ in the various aspects of body, so 
also we differ in the various aspects of mind. These differences 
can be measured by tests. A knowledge of these differences 
should aid us in grading, classifying, and teaching children, 
as well as in the selection of occupation and professions for them. 
Mental traits have some degree of independence; as a result a 
high degree of one trait may be found with low degree of some 
others. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Many of the tests and experiments already described should 
have shown many of the individual differences of the members 
of the class. The teacher will find in the author's Examination of 
School Children a series of group tests with norms which can be 
used for a further study of individual differences. 

2. The tapping experiment described in the first chapter can 
now be repeated and the results taken as a measure of reaction 
time. 

3. You should now have available the records of all the tests 
and experiments so far given that show individual differences. 
Make out a table showing the rank of each student in the various 
tests. Compute the average rank of each student for all the 
tests. This average rank may be taken as a measure of the in- 
telligence of the students, as far as such can be determined by the 
tests used. Correlate this ranking with standing in the high school 
classes. It will give a positive correlation, not perfect, however. 



208 The Science of Human Nature 

Why not? If your measures of intelligence were absolutely cor- 
rect, you still would not get a perfect correlation with high school 
standing. Why not? 

4. If you had a correct measure of intelligence of 100 mature 
people in your city, selected at random, would this measure give 
you an exact measure of their success in life ? Give the reason for 
your answer. 

5. Of all the tests and experiments previously described in this 
book, which gives the best indication of success in high school? 

6. If the class in psychology is a large one, a graph should be 
prepared showing the distribution of abilities in the class. For 
this purpose, you will have to use the absolute measures instead of 
ranks. Find the average for each test used. Make these aver- 
ages all the same by multiplying the low ones and dividing the 
high ones. Then all the grades of each student can be added. 
This will give each test the same weight in the average. The use 
of a slide rule will make this transference to a new average very 
easy. A more accurate method for this computation is de- 
scribed in the author's Examination of School Children, p. 65. 

The students should make a study of individual differences 
and the distribution of ability in some grade below the high school. 
The tests described in this chapter can be used for that purpose. 

7. Is it a good thing for high school students to find out how 
they compare with others in their various mental functions? If 
you have poor ability, is it a good thing for you to find it out? 
If the teacher and students think best, the results of all the vari- 
ous tests need not be made known except to the persons con- 
cerned. The data can be used in the various computations with- 
out the students' knowing whose measures they are. 

8. To what extent is ability a factor in life? You find people 
of only ordinary ability succeeding and brilliant people failing. 
Why is this? 

9. None of the tests so far used measures ideals or persever- 
ance and persistence. These are important factors in life, and 
there is no very adequate measure for any of them. The students 
might plan some experiments to test physical and mental per- 
sistence and endurance. The tapping experiment, for example, 
might be continued for an hour and the records kept for each 
minute. Then from these records a graph could be plotted show- 
ing the course of efficiency for the hour. Mental adding or mul- 



Individual Differences 209 

tiplying might be kept up continuously for several hours and the 
results studied as above. 

10. We have said that ideals and persistence are important 
factors in life. Are they inherited or acquired? 

11. Do you find it to be the rule or the exception for a per- 
son standing high in one mental function to stand high in the 
others also? 

12. Make a complete outline of the chapter. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

MtJNSTERBERG : Psychology, General and Applied. Chapter XVI. 
Pyle : The Examination of School Children. 
Pyle : The Outlines of Educational Psychology. Chapter XVII. 
Titchener: A Beginner's Psychology, pp. 309-311. 



CHAPTER X 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 

The General Field. Psychology has now reached 
that stage in its development where it can be of use 
to humanity. It can be of use in those fields which 
demand a knowledge of human nature. As indicated 
in the first chapter, these fields are education, medicine, 
law, business, and industry. We may add another 
which has been called " culture." We cannot say 
that psychology is able yet to be of very great service 
except to education, law, and medicine. It has been 
of less service to the field of business and industry, 
but in the future, its contribution here will be as great 
as in the other fields. While the service of psychology 
in the various fields is not yet great, what it will event- 
ually be able to do is very clear. It is the purpose of 
this chapter to indicate briefly, the nature and possi- 
bilities of this psychological service. 

Education. Throughout the preceding chapters, 
we have emphasized the educational importance of the 
facts discussed. There is little left to say here except 
to summarize the main facts. Since education is a 
matter of making a child over into what he ought to 
be, the science of education demands a knowledge 
of the original nature of children. This means that 
one must know the nature of instincts, their relations 
to one another, their order of development, and the 

210 



Applied Psychology 211 

possibilities of their being changed, modified, developed, 
suppressed. It means that one must know the nature 
of the child's mind in all its various functions, the 
development and significance of these functions, — 
memory, association, imagination, and attention. The 
science especially demands that we understand the 
principles of habit-formation, the laws of economical 
learning, and the laws of memory. 

This psychological knowledge must form the ground- 
work in the education of teachers for their profession. 
In addition to this general preparation of the teacher, 
psychology will render the schools a great service 
through the psycho-clinicist, who will be a psycholog- 
ical expert working under the superintendents of our 
school systems. His duty will be to supervise the 
work of mental testing, the work of diagnosis for feeble- 
mindedness and selection of the subnormal children, the 
teaching of such children. He will give advice in 
all cases which demand expert psychological knowl- 
edge. 

Medicine. In the first place, there is a department 
of medicine which deals with nervous diseases, such as 
insanity, double personality, severe nervous shock, 
hallucination, etc. This entire aspect of medicine 
is wholly psychological. But psychology can be of 
service to the general practitioner both in the diag- 
nosis and treatment of disease. A thorough psycholog- 
ical knowledge of human nature will assist a physician 
in diagnosis. Often the best way to find out what 
ails a patient's body is through the patient's mind, 
and the doctor must know how to get the truth from 
the patient's mind even in those cases in which the 
patient is actually trying to conceal the truth. A pro- 
found practical knowledge of human nature is neces- 



212 The Science of Human Nature 

sary, — a knowledge which can be obtained only by 
long and careful technical study as well as practice and 
experience. 

Psychology can be of service in the treatment of 
disease. The physician must understand the peculiar 
mental characteristics of his patient in order to know 
how to deal with him. In some cases, hypnotism is 
a valuable aid in treatment, and in many cases, ordi- 
nary normal suggestion can be of considerable service. 
The state of mind of a sick person has much to do with 
his recovery. The physician must know this and 
must know how to induce the desired state of mind. 
Indeed, a patient's trouble is often imaginary, exists 
in the mind only ; in such cases, the treatment should 
be wholly mental, i.e, through suggestion. Of course, 
the best physicians know these facts and make use 
of them in their practice, but preparation for this 
aspect of their work should be a regular part of their 
medical education. They should not be left to learn 
these facts from their practice as best they may, any 
more than they should be expected to learn their 
physiology and anatomy in this way. 

Law. The service of psychology to law can be very 
great, but owing to the necessary conservatism of 
the courts, it will be a long time before they will make 
much use of psychological knowledge. Perhaps the 
greatest service will be in determining the credibility 
of evidence. Psychology can now give the general 
principles in this matter. Witnesses go on the stand 
and swear to all sorts of things as to what they heard 
and saw and did, often months and even years pre- 
viously. The expert clinical psychologist can tell 
the court the probability of such evidence being true. 
Experiments have shown that there is a large per- 



Applied Psychology 213 

centage of error in such evidence. The additional value 
that comes from the oath has been measured. The 
oath increases the liability of truth only a small per- 
centage. 

Experiments have also shown that one's feeling of 
certainty is no guarantee of truth. Sometimes the 
point we feel surest about is the one farthest from the 
truth. In fact, feeling sure of a thing is no guarantee 
of truth. 

In a particular case in court, the psychologist can 
determine the reliability of the evidence of a particular 
witness and enable the judge and the jury to put the 
proper value on such witness's testimony. For ex- 
ample, a witness may swear to a certain point involv- 
ing the estimation of time and distance. The psychol- 
ogist can measure the witness's accuracy in such esti- 
mates, often showing that what the witness claims to- 
be able to do is an impossibility. A case may hinge on 
whether an interval of time was ten minutes or twelve 
minutes, or whether a distance was three himdred or 
four hundred feet. A witness may swear positively 
to one or both of these points. The psychologist 
can show the court the limitations of the witness in 
making such estimates. 

Psychology can be of service in the examination 
of the criminal himself. Through association tests 
and in other ways, the guilt or innocence of the prisoner 
can often be determined, and his intellectual status 
can also be determined. The prisoner may be insane, 
or feeble-minded, or have some other peculiar mental 
disorder. Such matters fall within the realm of 
psychology. After a prisoner has been found guilty, 
the court should have the advice of the clinical psy- 
chologist in deciding what should be done with him. 



214 The Science of Human Nature 

It should be added that the court and not the attor- 
neys should make use of the psychologist. Whenever 
a psychologist can be of service in a case in court, 
the judge should summon such assistance, just as he 
should if expert chemical, physical, physiological, or 
anatomical knowledge should be desired. 

A knowledge of human nature can be of much ser- 
vice to society in the prevention of crime. This will 
come about from a better knowledge of the psycholog- 
ical principles of habit-formation and moral training, 
through a better knowledge of how to control human 
nature. A large percentage of all crime, perhaps as 
much as forty per cent, is committed by feeble-minded 
people. Now, if we can detect these people early, 
and give them the simple manual education which 
they are capable of receiving, we can keep them out 
of a life of crime. 

Studies of criminals in reform schools show that the 
history of many cases is as follows: The person, 
being of low mentality, could not get on well at school 
and therefore came to dislike school, and consequently 
became a truant. Truancy led to crime. Crime sent 
the person to the court, and the court sent the person 
to the state reformatory. 

The great duty of the state is the prevention of 
crime. Usually little can be done in the way of sav- 
ing a mature criminal. We must save the children 
before they become criminals, save them by proper 
treatment. Society owes it to every child to do the 
right thing for him, the right thing, whether the child 
is an idiot or a genius. Merely from the standpoint 
of economy, it would be an immense saving to the 
state if it would prevent crime by the proper treatment 
of every child. 



Applied Psychology 215 

Business. The contribution of psychology in this 
field, so far, is in the psychology of advertising and 
salesmanship, both having to do chiefly with the sell- 
ing of goods. Students of the psychology of advertis- 
ing have, by experiment, determined many principles 
that govern people when reading newspapers and maga- 
zines, principles having to do with size and kind of 
type, arrangement and form, the wording of an ad- 
vertisement, etc. The object of an advertisement 
is to get the reader interested in the article advertised. 
The first thing is to get him to read the advertisement. 
Here, various principles of attention are involved. 
The next thing is to have the matter of the advertise- 
ment of such a nature that it creates interest and re- 
mains in memory, so that when the reader buys an 
article of that type he buys the particular kind men- 
tioned in the advertisement. 

In salesmanship, many subtle psychological prin- 
ciples are involved. The problem of the salesman is 
to get the attention of the customer, and then to make 
him want to buy his goods. To do this with the great- 
est success demands a profound knowledge of human 
nature. Other things being equal, that man can 
most influence people who has the widest knowledge 
of the nature of people, and of the factors that affect 
this nature. The successful salesman must under- 
stand human feelings and emotions, especially sym- 
pathy; also the laws of attention and memory, and 
the power of suggestion. A mastery of the impor- 
tant principles requires years of study, and a successful 
application of them requires just as many years of 
practice. 

The last paragraph leads us to a consideration of 
the general problem of influencing men. In all occu- 



216 The Science of Human Nature 

pations and professions, one needs to know how to 
influence other men. We have already discussed 
the matter of influencing people to buy goods. People 
who employ labor need to know how to get laborers 
to do more and better work, how to make them loyal 
and happy. The minister needs to know how to in- 
duce the members of his congregation to do right. 
The statesman needs to know how to win his hearers 
and convince them of the justice and wisdom of his 
cause. Whatever our calling, there is scarcely a day 
when we could not do better if we knew more fully 
how to influence people. 

Industry. The service of psychology here is four- 
fold : (1) Finding what men are fitted for. (2) Find- 
ing what kinds of abilities are demanded by the vari- 
ous trades and occupations. (3) Helping the worker 
to understand the psychological aspects of his work. 
(4) Getting the best work out of the laborer. 

Finding what men are fitted for. In the preceding 
chapter, we discussed the individual variations of 
men. Some people are better fitted physically and 
mentally for certain types of work than they are 
for other types of work. The determination of what 
an individual is fitted for and what he is not fitted for 
is the business of psychology. In some cases, the ver- 
dict of psychology can be very specific; in others, 
it can be only general. Much misery and unhappiness 
come to people from trying to do what they are not 
fitted by nature to do. There are many professions 
and occupations which people should not enter unless 
they possess high general ability. Now, psychology 
is able to measure general ability. There are many 
other occupations and professions which people should 
not enter unless they possess some special ability. 



Applied Psychology 217 

Music, art, and mechanics may be mentioned as 
examples of occupations and professions demanding 
specific kinds of ability. In industrial work, many 
aspects demand very special abilities, as quick reac- 
tion, quick perception, fine discrimination, calmness 
and self-control, ingenuity, quick adaptation to new 
situations. Psychology can aid in picking out the 
people who possess the required abilities. 

The different abilities demanded. It is the business 
of psychology to make a careful analysis of the specific 
abilities required in all the various works of life. There 
are hundreds of occupations and often much differentia- 
tion of work within an occupation. It is for the psychol- 
ogist of the future to make this analysis and to classify 
the occupations with reference to the kinds of abilities 
demanded. Of course, many of them will be found to 
require the same kind of ability, but just as surely, 
many will be found to require very special abilities. 
It is a great social waste to have people trying to fill 
such positions unless they possess the specific abilities 
required. 

It should be the work of the high school and college 
to explain the possibilities, and the demands in the way 
of ability, of the various occupations of the locality. 
By possibilities and demands are meant the kinds of 
abilities required and the rewards that can be expected, 
the kind of life which the different fields offer. It is 
the further duty of the high school and college to 
find out, as far as possible, the specific abilities of the 
students. With this knowledge before them, the 
students should choose their careers, and then make 
specific preparation for them. The schools ought to 
work in close cooperation with the industries, the stu- 
dent working for a part of the day in school and a part 



218 The Science of Human Nature 

in the industries. This would help much in leading 
the student to understand the industries and in ascer- 
taining his own abilities and interests. 

The psychological aspects of one's work. All occu- 
pations have a psychological aspect. They involve 
some trick of attention, of association, of memory. 
Certain things must be looked for, certain habits must 
be formed, certain movements must be automatized. 
Workmen should be helped to master these psycho- 
logical problems, to find the most convenient ways of 
doing their work. Workmen often do their work in 
the most uneconomical ways, having learned their 
methods through imitation, and never inquiring 
whether there is a more economical way. 

Securing efficiency. Securing efficiency is a matter 
of influencing men, a matter which we have already 
discussed. Securing efficiency is quite a different 
matter from that treated in the preceding paragraph. 
A workman may have a complete knowledge of his 
work and be skilled in its performance, and still be a 
poor workman, because he does not have the right 
attitude toward his employer or toward his work. 
The employer must therefore meet the problem of 
making his men like their work and be loyal to their 
employer. The laborer must be happy and contented 
if he is to do good work. Moreover, there is no use 
in working, or in living either, if one cannot be happy 
and contented. 

We have briefly indicated the possibilities of psy- 
chology in the various occupations and professions. 
There is a further application that has no reference 
to the practical needs of life, but to enjoyment. A 
psychological knowledge of human nature adds a 
new interest to all our social experience. The ability 



Applied Psychology 219 

to understand the actions and feelings of men puts 
new meaning into the world. The ability to under- 
stand oneself, to analyze one's actions, motives, feel- 
ings, and thoughts, makes life more worth living. A 
knowledge of the sensations and sense organs adds 
much pleasure to life in addition to its having great 
practical value. Briefly, a psychological knowledge 
of human nature adds much to the richness of life. 
It gives one the analytical attitude. Experiences 
that to others are wholes, to the psychologist fall apart 
into their elements. Such knowledge leads us to 
analyze and see clearly what otherwise we do not under- 
stand and see only darkly or not at all. Literature and 
art, and all other creations and products of man take on 
a wholly new interest to the psychologist. 

Summary. Psychology is of service to education in ascertain- 
ing the nature of the child and the laws of learning; to law, in 
determining the reliability of evidence and in the prevention of 
crime; to medicine, in the work of diagnosis and treatment; to 
business, in advertising and salesmanship ; to the industries, in 
finding the man for the place and the place for the man ; to every- 
body, in giving a keener insight into, and understanding of, human 
nature. 

CLASS EXERCISES 

1. Visit a court room when a trial is in progress. Note wherein 
psychology could be of service to the jury, to the judge, and to 
the attorneys. 

2. To test the reliability of evidence, proceed as follows : Take 
a large picture, preferably one in color and having many details; 
hold it before the class in a good light where all can see it. Let 
them look at it for ten or fifteen seconds, the time depending on 
the complexity of the picture. The students should then write 
down what they saw in the picture, underscoring all the points 
to which they would be willing to make oath. Then the students 
should answer a list of questions prepared by the teacher, on 



220 The Science of Human Nature 

various points in the picture. Some of these questions should 
be suggestive, such as, "What color is the dog?" supposing no 
dog to be in the picture. The papers giving the first written 
description should be graded on the number of items reported 
and on their accuracy. The answers to the questions should 
be graded on their accuracy. How do girls compare with boys 
in the various aspects of the report? What is the accuracy of 
the underlined points? 

3. Let the teacher, with the help of two or three students, 
perform before the class some act or series of acts, with some con- 
versation, and then have the students who have witnessed the 
performance write an account of it, as in No. 2. 

4. Divide the class into two groups. Select one person from 
each to look at a picture as in No. 1. These two people are then 
to write a complete account of the picture. This account is 
then read to another person in the same group, who then writes 
from memory his account and reads to another. This is to be 
continued till all have heard an account and written their own. 
You will then have two series of accounts of the same picture 
proceeding from two sources. It will be well for the two who look 
at the picture to be of very different types, let us say, one imagina- 
tive, the other matter-of-fact. 

Do all the papers of one series have some characteristics that 
enable you to determine from which group they come? What 
conclusions and inferences do you draw from the experiment? 

5. Does the feeling of certainty make a thing true? See how 
many cases you can find in a week, of persons feeling sure a state- 
ment is true, when it is really false. 

6. In the following way, try to find out something which a 
person is trying to conceal. Prepare a list of words, inserting 
now and then words which have some reference to the vital point. 
Read the words one by one to the person and have him speak the 
first word suggested by those read. Note the time taken for 
the responses. A longer reaction time usually follows the incrim- 
inating words, and the subject is thrown into a visible confusion. 

7. Talk to successful physicians and find out what use they 
make of suggestion and other psychological principles. 

8. Spend several hours visiting different grades below the high 
school. In how many ways could the teachers improve their 
work by following psychological principles? 



Applied Psychology 221 

9. Could the qualities of a good teacher — native and acquired 
— be measured by tests and experiments ? 

10. Visit factories where men do skillful work and try to learn 
by observation what types of mind and body are required by the 
different kinds of work. 

11. Does the occupation which you have chosen for life de- 
mand any specific abilities? If so, do you possess them in a 
high degree? 

12. Could parents better train their children if they made use 
of psychological principles? 

13. In how many ways will the facts learned in this course be 
of economic use to you in your life? In what ways will they 
make life more pleasurable? 

14. Make a complete outline of this chapter. 

REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING 

MuNSTERBERG: Psychology, General and Applied, Chapter 

XXVII-XXXIII. 
MuNSTERBERG I The Psychology of Industrial Efficiency. 



ALPHABETICAL LIST OF REFERENCES 
FOR CLASS READING 

COLVIN, S. S., and Bagley, W. C. : Human Behavior, The Mac- 
millan Company, 1913. 

Davenport, C. B. : Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, Henry Holt 
& Company, 1911. 

Dewey, J. : How We Think. D. C. Heath & Company, 1910. 

Kellicott, W. E. : The Social Direction of Human Evolution. 
D. Appleton & Company, 1911. 

KiRKPATRiCK, E. A. : The Fundamentals of Child Study. The 
Macmillan Company, 1912. 

MiJNSTERBERG, H. : Psychology, General and Applied. D. Ap- 
pleton & Company, 1914. 

MiJNSTERBERG, H. : The Psychology of Industrial Efficiency. 
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913. 

PiLLSBURY, W. B. : Essentials of Psychology. The Macmillan 
Company, 1916. 

Pyle, W. H. : Outlines of Educational Psychology. Warwick and 
York, 1912. 

Pyle, W. H. : The Examination of School Children. The Mac- 
millan Company, 1913. 

RowE, S. H. : Hahit-Formation and the Science of Teaching. 
Longmans, Green, & Company, 1911. 

TiTCHENER, E. B. : A Beginner's Psychology. The Macmillan 
Company, 1916. 



222 



GLOSSARY 

Most of the terms given below are explained in the text, but 
it is hoped that this alphabetical list with brief definitions will 
prove helpful. It is a difficult task to make the definitions scien- 
tific and at the same time brief, simple, and clear. 

Abnormal. Having mental or physical characteristics widely 
different from those commonly found in ordinary people. 

Acquired nature. Those aspects of habit, skill, knowledge, ideas, 
and ideals that come from experience and are due to experi- 
ence. 

Action. Muscular contractions usually producing motion of 
the body or of some part of the body. 

Adaptation. Adjustment to one's surroundings. 

Adaptive. Readily changing one's responses and acquiring such 
new responses as enable one to meet successfully new situa- 
tions ; also having tendencies or characteristics which enable 
one to be readily adjustable. 

After-images. Images that follow immediately after stimulation 
of a sense organ, and resulting from this stimulation. 

Association. Binding together ideas through experiencing them 
together. 

Attention. Relative clearness of perceptions and ideas. 

Attitude. The tendency toward a particular type of response in 
action or a particular idea or association in thought. 

Bond. The connection established in the nervous system which 
makes a certain response follow a certain stimulus or a cer- 
tain idea follow another idea or perception. 

Capacity. The possibility of learning, achieving, etc. 

Color blindness. Inability to experience certain colors, usually 
red and green. 

Complementary color. Complementary colors are those which, 
mixed in the right proportion, produce gray. 

Congenital. Inborn. 

223 



224 Glossary 



Connection. The nerve-path through which a stimulus produces 
a response or through which one idea produces or evokes 
another. 

Conscious. Having consciousness, or accompanying conscious- 
ness or producing consciousness. 

Consciousness. The mental states — perceptions, ideas, feel- 
ings — which one has at any moment. 
Low level of consciousness. Conscious processes not so clear as 

others existing at the same time. 
High level of consciousness. Conscious processes that are clear 
as compared to others existing at the same time. 

Contrast. The enhancing or strengthening of a sensation by an- 
other of opposite quality. 

Correlation. The relation that exists between two functions, 
characteristics, or attributes that enables us, finding one, 
to predict the presence of the other. 

Development. The appearance, or growth, or strengthening of a 
characteristic. 

Emotion. The pleasure-pain aspect of experience plus sensations 
from characteristic bodily reactions. 

Environment. The objects and forces about us which affect us 
through our senses. 

Environmental instincts. Instincts which have originated, at least 
in part, from the periodic changes in man's environment. 

Eugenics. The science of race improvement through selective 
breeding or proper marriages or in some cases through the 
prevention of marriage. 

Experience. What we learn of the world through sensation and 
perception. 

Fatigue. Inability to work produced by work and which only 
rest will cure. 

Feeble-minded. Having important mental traits only poorly de- 
veloped or not at all. 

Feeling. The pleasure-pain aspect of experience or of ideational 
states. 

Function. The use of a thing or process, also any mental process 
or combination of processes considered as a unit. 

Genetic. Having reference to origin and development. 

Habits. Definite responses to definite stimuli depending upon 
bonds established by use after birth. 



Glossary 225 



Heredity, Transmission of characteristics from parent to off- 
spring. 
Human nature. The characteristics and tendencies which we 

have as human beings, with particular reference to mind and 

action. 
Ideals. Definite tendencies to act in definite ways. Ideas of 

definite types of action with tendency toward the actions ; 

ideas of definite conditions, forms, and states together with 

a desire to experience or possess them. 
Ideas. Revived perceptions. 
Images. Revived sensations, simpler than ideas. 
Imitation. Acting as we see others act. 
Impulse. Tendency to action. 

Individualistic instincts. Those instincts which more immedi- 
ately serve individual survival. 
Individual differences. The mental and physical differences 

between people. 
Inherited nature. Those aspects of one's nature due directly 

to heredity. 
Instincts. Definite responses produced by definite stimuli through 

hereditary connections in the nervous system. 
Intellectual habits. Definite fixed connections between ideas; 

definite ways of meeting typical thought situations. 
Intensity. The amount or strength of a sensation or image, how 

far it is from nothing. 
Interest. The aspect given to experience or thinking by attention 

and pleasure. 
Learning. Establishing new bonds or connections in the nervous 

system ; acquiring habits ; gaining knowledge. 
Memory. The retention of experience; retained and reproduced 

experience. 
Mental set. Mental attitude or disposition. 
Mind. The sum total of one's conscious states from birth to 

death. 
Nerve-path. The route traversed by a nerve-stimulus or excitation. 
Original nature. All those aspects of mind and body directly 

inherited. 
Perceive. To be aware of a thing through sensation. 
Perception. Awareness of a thing through sensation or a fusion 

of sensations. 



226 Glossary 



Plasticity. Modifiability, making easy the formation of new 
bonds or nerve-connections. 

Presupposition. A theory or hypothesis on which an argument 
or a system of arguments or principles is based. 

Primary. First, original, elementary, perceptive experience as 
distinguished from ideational experience. 

Reaction. The action immediately following a stimulus and pro- 
duced by it. 

Reasoning. Thinking to a purpose ; trying to meet a new situation. 

Reflex. A very simple act brought about by a stimulus through 
an hereditary nerve-path. 

Response. The act following a stimulus and produced by it. 

Retention. Memory; modification of the nervous system mak- 
ing possible the revival of experience. 

Science. Knowledge classified and systematized. 

Sensation. Primary experience; consciousness directly due to 
the stimulation of a sense organ. 

Sense. To sense is to have sensation, to perceive. A sense is a 
sense organ or the ability to have sensation through a sense 
organ. 

Sense organ. A modified nerve-end with accompanying apparatus 
or mechanism making possible a certain form of stimulation. 

Sensitive. Capable of giving rise to sensation, or transmitting 
a nerve-current. 

Sensitivity. Property of, or capacity for being sensitive. 

Sensory. Relating to a sense organ or to sensation. 

Situation. The total environmental influences of any one moment. 

Socialistic instincts. The instincts related more directly to the 
survival of a social group. 

Stimulation. The setting up of a nerve process in a sense organ 
or in a nerve tract. 

Stimulus. That which produces stimulation. 

Subnormal. Having characteristics considerably below the 
normal. 

Tendency. Probability of a nerve-current taking a certain direc- 
tion due to nerve-organization. 

Thinking. The passing of images and ideas. 

Thought. Thinking ; an idea or group of ideas. 

Training. Establishing nerve connection or bonds. 

Vividness. Clearness of sensations, perceptions, images, and ideas. 



INDEX 



Abilities, specialized, 179 
Ability, unusual, 206 
Adaptation of vision, 41 
After-images, visual, 40 
Ancestors, 22 f . 
Anger, 58 

Appearance of instincts, 54 
Applied psychology, 8-9, 210 fT. 
Association of ideas, 152 
Astigmatism, 44 
Attention, 80 ff. ; and will, 82. 
Attitude, 157 

Behavior, 7 

Bodily conditions, 76 

Brain, 7 

Brightness, sensation of, 38 

Business, 215 

Causality, 18, 21 
Centrally initiated action, 51 
Child, nature of, 11 
Cold, sense of, 42 
Collecting instinct, 62 
College, function of, 217 
Color blindness, 45 
Color mixture, 39 
Color, sensation of, 38 
Completion test, 198 
Concentrated practice, 102 
Consciousness, 7 
Conservatism, 109 
Costly Temper test, 186 
Cramming, 141 
Criminal, the, 213 f. 
Curriculum, 145 

Darwin, 89 

Defects of sense organs, 43 



Development, individual, 24 ff. ; 

racial, 18-21 ; significance of and 

causality, 21-24. 
Direct method, 112 
Dizziness, organs that give us 

sense of, 42. 
Dramatization, 67 
Drill in school subjects, 110-112. 
Dynamic, world as, 20 

Economical practice, 101 ff. 

Education, 210; aim of, 10; pre- 
paratory, 167 ; science of, 9 ff. 

Educational inferences, 143 

Educational psychology, 9 ff. 

Efficiency, 98, 108 

Emotions, 74 S. 

Environment, 31 

Environmental instincts, 61 

Envy, 58 

Evolution, 19 ff. 

Exceptions, 101, 114 

Excursions, 61 

Experience, 8; organization of, 
169. 

Experiment, 13 ff. 

Eye, the, 37 

Eye defects, 43 ff. 

Eyestrain, 20 

Farsightedness, 44 
Fatigue, 101 
Fear, 56 

Feeble-mindedness, 29 
Feeling, 73 ff. 
Fighting instincts, 58 
Formal drill, III, 112 
Free association frequency surface, 
178 
227 



228 



Index 



Free association test, 193 
Frequency of experience, 156 

Gang instinct, 60 

Genetic view of childhood, 24 

Genius, 31 

Habit, 87 fif ; and nerve path, 91 ; 

how formed, 98 ff, ; importance 

in life, 107; intellectual, 89; 

moral, 90; of thought, 169; 

results of, 94; specific, 116 
Hearing, 41 ; defects of, 45 
Heredity, 24 ff. 
Heredity vs. Environment, 31 
Heritage, social, 23 
High school and fourth grade 

abilities compared, 203 
High school, function of, 217 
Home and moral training, 118 

Idea, 52 

Ideas, 124 

Imitation, 64 fT. 

Imitation in ideals, 67 

Incidental drill. 111 

Individual development, 24 ff. 

Individual differences, 176 ff. 

Individualistic instincts, 56 

Industry, 216 

Influencing men, 215 

Inheritance, 22 

Inherited tendencies, 50 ff. 

Initiative, 113 

Instincts, 52 ff. ; classification of, 

55 ; significance of, 55 
Interest, 84 
Intervals between practice, 102 

Jealousy, 58 

Joints, sense organs in, 42 

Jost's law, 142 

Language and thinking, 170 ff. 

Language study, 144 

Latin, 116 

Law, service of psychology to, 

212 
Learning and remembering, 138 
Learning by wholes, 141 



Life occupations, 205 
Logical memory, 184 ff. 

Meaning, 163 ff. 

Medicine, 211 

Memories, kinds of, 132 

Memory, 124 ff. ; and age and sex, 
127 ; and habit, 146 ; and school 
standing, 135 ; and thinking, 
134; factors of, 128 ff. ; good, 
dangers resulting from, 137; 
kinds of, 132 

Mendelian principle, 26 

Mental development, 19 

Mental differences, 178; detection 
of, 180 ; importance of, 201 ff. 

Mental functions developed, 182 

Mental set, 157 

Mental tests, 183 ff. 

Mind and body, 34 ff . 

Mood, 78 

Moral training, 117 ff. 

Motive, 77 

Muscular speed, 14 

Museum, school, 62 ff. 

Musical ability, 179 

Nearsightedness, 44 
Needs of child, 77 
Nerve tendency, 92 
Norms in mental tests, 184 ff . 

Occupations, 205 
Opposites test, 196 ff. 
Organization of experience, 163 ff. 

Pain sense, 42 

Parents, and habit-formation of 

children, 104 ff., 119 
Perception, 124 

Physiological basis of memory, 126 
Piano playing, 51, 97 
Pitch, 41 
Plasticity, 93 
Play, 68 

Pleasure and habit, 101 
Pleasure, higher forms of, 80 
Practice, 99, 113 
Primary experience, 154 
Psychology and culture, 218 
Psychology defined, 5 ; method of, 

13 ; problems of, 8 



Index 



229 



Race, development of, 18 £F. ; im- 
provement of, 30 
Ranking students, 15 
Reasoning, 159 ; training in, 168 
Recalling forgotten names, 146 
Recency of experience, 155 
Regeneration, 23 
Repetition, 99 
Respect for authority, 77 
Resemblance, 25 
Retina, the, 37 f. 
Revived experience, 125 
Rigidity, 108 
Rote memory, 189 
Rules for habit-formation, 113 

Salesmanship, 215 

School, and habit, 108 ; and moral 

training, 119 f. 
Schoolhouse, community center, 

60 f. 
Science, 1 
Scientific law, 3 
Scientist, 1 ff. 
Securing efficiency, 218 
Selecting habits, 109 
Sense organs, affects of stimulating, 

6, 7 ; knowledge through, 35 
Sleight's experiment, 140 
Smell, 42 
Social life of children, 60 



Social tendencies, 59 
Stimulation, 6 
Stimulus and response, 50 
Study, learning how to, 132 
Subnormal children, 206 
Substitution test, 192 

Taste, 42 

Teacher, function of in memory 
work, 142 ; function of in habit- 
formation, 103 

Teaching too abstract, 129 

Temperament, 78 

Tendons, sense organs in, 42 

Thinking, 152 ff., 159 

Touch, 42 

Transfer of training, 114 ff., 140 

Truancies, 61 

Typewriting, 51, 94 ff. 

Vision, 37 ; importance of, 45 
Visual contrast, 39 
Vividness and intensity of expe- 
rience, 156 

Wandering, 61 
Warmth, sense of, 42 
Weight, diagram showing fre- 
quency surface of, 177 
Word-building test, 197 
Work and psychology, 218 



